


HEARTS HOWLIN'

by boneshrine



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, Alternate Universe - Photojournalist, Camping, Hiking, M/M, Slow Burn, minseok and baekhyun are side characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 10:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18248168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boneshrine/pseuds/boneshrine
Summary: Photojournalist Kim Jongin doesn't expect to fall in love with the trails of northern Minnesota. He especially doesn't expect to fall in love with Chanyeol.





	HEARTS HOWLIN'

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt #:** CK23  
>  **Original Prompt:** Kim Jongin is an up-and-coming photojournalist for a magazine specializing in geography, travel, and culture. His first assignment outside of the office sends him to North America on a national hiking trail with a small team of veteran backpackers. Over the span of his >2 month assignment, he finds himself falling in love with one of the backpackers, Chanyeol.
> 
> well, here it is! this author's note is already long, so acknowledgements are at the end.
> 
> it would not take this long to hike the sht if you walked at a normal pace. jongin & co stop much more frequently than typical backpackers would, and stay at some campsites and motels for consecutive days.

There's a layover at LAX, and then another at O'Hare. Jongin gets lost more than once without someone else to tell him where to go—he's always been a bit useless when it comes to directions in new places—but he somehow manages to catch his flights on time. The commute from South Korea to Minnesota seems to drag on and on between bland on-flight meals and uncomfortable naps that leave him with a sore neck, until their pilot announces that they're descending, and "Please buckle your seat belts," and then it's all too sudden, and Jongin is filled with apprehension again. He's never been this far from home before, on the literal opposite side of the planet. It's also the longest he'll be away, the next longest having been his assignment in Japan, where he did a piece about the Otaru Yuki Akari no Michi, the snow light festival. To date, it had been his favorite assignment; it was quieter than the more popular winter festivals, but beautiful, and he took a lot of amazing pictures and interesting stories. It was also one of his hardest; the festival featured many beautiful dances, and he had felt awed, but also bitterly jealous.

But their readers loved his article. It's what got him on the map, so to speak. But Japan isn't on the other side of the planet, and one week isn't . . . .

The plane lands, and Jongin collects his carry-on from the overhead compartment. He opens up the bag to take out his camera, slinging it around his neck before zipping the bag back up.

He follows the crowd out of the plane and to the baggage claim, where he gets his single suitcase. Although he'll be here in Minnesota for at least two months, his liaison had told him to pack light; he won't need a change of clothes on trail. The thought of being stuck in the same outfit for that long grosses Jongin out, but he obeyed without complaining. This is his job, after all. Even if it's a job he likes, there's bound to be some aspects of it he doesn't, and this is one of them.

With his suitcase back in his possession, he makes his way to the gate entrance, carefully and broadly sweeping the area with his gaze until he finds his name on a plain white poster board, first in Hangeul and then, underneath it, in English. Jongin approaches, slow and hesitant. "Minseok Kim?" Jongin is confident in his ability to speak in English, but not his ability to speak to strangers, even if the man behind the poster doesn't look intimidating at all.

He lowers the poster board and grins. His smile is wide and gummy, and Jongin immediately feels some of his apprehension fall away. "That's me! You must be Jongin," he says in English, and then in Korean, he says, "We can speak in Korean, if you'd like."

"That would be nice," Jongin says, relieved. Using his native language is soothing after hours of nothing but English. Minseok's small stature and monolid eyes are also unexpectedly welcome in their familiarity, even if his dyed brown hair has an edgy undercut style.

"But only when it's us. When Chanyeol and Baekhyun join us, we're using English. Baekhyun speaks a little bit of Korean, but Chanyeol doesn't speak any." Without asking, he takes Jongin's suitcase from his hand and begins walking away, and Jongin scrambles to follow. From behind, he can see that Minseok's small stature and babyish face don't stop him from gaining muscle, if the contours of his back are anything to go by. "Speaking of which, sorry for how plain the poster is. Baekhyun tried to convince me to decorate it with glitter and Lisa Frank stickers. I told him that I didn't want to scare anyone off before I even met them."

Jongin doesn't know who Chanyeol and Baekhyun are, but he assumes they're the two other companions that are going to accompany them backpacking. "It's fine," Jongin says.

Minseok's car is a nondescript Grand Am squished into a stall in the airport parking lot. "I know that more travelling is probably the last thing you want to do," Minseok says as they get in, "but we're heading up to Duluth, which is at least another two and a half hours."

Jongin thinks it's silly how Americans measure distance by time, but at least it means that Jongin doesn't have to deal with converting Imperial values to metric ones. "It's fine," Jongin repeats.

Minseok laughs. "You're a pretty laid-back person, aren't you?"

Only around new people, Jongin thinks. Minseok wouldn't think that if he'd seen how competitive Jongin was when he, Sehun, and Taemin played Super Smash brothers until five in the morning on the day of his flight. "Yeah, usually," he says. He wishes he wasn't so shy around new people. Luckily, Minseok seems to think he's "laid-back" instead of "awkward and anxious enough to not talk more than needed."

Focused on navigating his way out of the metro area during rush hour, Minseok doesn't talk much at first beyond asking if the car temperature is acceptable (it is) and telling Jongin he can change the radio if he wants to (he doesn't).

Jongin turns his phone's airplane mode back off, and it buzzes soon after with three messages. The first is from Sehun: a picture of Sehun, Taemin, and Jongin's puppies with an accompanying text saying _your puppies already love me more than you,_ which is absolutely false so Jongin doesn't even reply to that. Instead, he sends back, _Landed. Tell my kids I miss them! Not you or Taemin though._

The second message is from Kyungsoo with a link to a website making fun of how people in the American Midwest talk and act, and a bid for a safe flight. Sehun might be Jongin's best friend, but Kyungsoo has always been Jongin's favorite hyung, and he replies with a sticker.

The third is from Hyunah, his boss. _Expecting big things from you, Jongin-ssi. Good luck!_ Jongin swallows hard and types back something vaguely appreciative before pocketing his phone again.

Once the congestion of traffic has loosened up enough that his grip on the steering wheel eases, Minseok says, "So, the plan is to stay at Baekhyun's house in Duluth for a few days. Baekhyun isn't actually there yet, though. He flew into Montana to meet Chanyeol—he works in Bozeman—and now they're in the middle of a road trip back to Duluth to meet us." He laughs as though at some inside joke. "Baekhyun was so excited about a road trip, but he hasn't had to drive through North Dakota before. He's going to be so bored. There's nothing but pastures and prairies once you get out of the Black Hills. Chanyeol can handle long bouts of silence, but Baekhyun's going to want to throw himself out of the car."

Jongin nods as though he knows where Montana or Bozeman or the Black Hills or North Dakota are. The only reason he knows anything about Minnesota is because he'd had to do preliminary research on it when he'd found out he was being sent here to hike the Superior Hiking Trail. He knows the Superior Hiking Trail actually starts in Wisconsin, but that most hikers start in Duluth because of the lack of campsites before that point. He knows that the trail follows the coast of Lake Superior until it reaches Canada. He also knows that Lake Superior looks, on a map, big enough to be a sea.

He knows that Minnesota is known for how cold it gets, but now, almost in the middle of June, it's warm and a little humid. It's not so different from Seoul this time of year.

The metro gives out to suburbs, which eventually turn into crop fields. Even with all of the farm land, there are lots of trees in between and throughout. Jongin taps his fingers along to the music as he gazes out of the window and tries to keep up with Minseok's conversation. Minseok doesn't seem to mind his awkwardness, easily filling the silence with friendly chatter.

"You look like you want to take pictures," Minseok comments.

They just passed an old farmstead, a crumbling brick house with broken glass windows and a dilapidated silo stationed next to it like its sentinel. If Jongin had the time for it, he would want to find the owner of the property and see if he could find out the farmstead's history, who built it, why no one renovated it. He'd go in and see what pictures would encapsulate that story and convey the loneliness of a house no longer lived in, the stubbornness of an antiquated silo. "I do," Jongin says.

"When your magazine reached out to me to ask if I'd hike with you, I was kind of surprised," Minseok says. "I usually only work with tourists who want to explore the 'rugged back country' of the United States, or with families or undergrads looking for a unique vacation. I've never led a trip for someone's job before."

Minseok's official title is Wilderness Trip Guide. According to his professional profile, he's from Minnesota, but he travels the entire US and leads backpacking, kayaking, and canoeing trips. He makes sure that everyone has all of the gear and provisions they need, plans out where exactly they'll make camp based on what pace the party wants to set, and keeps everyone safe. He's got certifications as both a first responder and in wilderness water safety, which, from what Jongin understands, is like a lifeguard but in places where no one _should_ actually be swimming, like in rivers and under waterfalls. Jongin has read horror stories about even swimming in calm waters. He doesn't want to become the next local headline of "Man Swims In Pond, Gets Barbed Fishing Hook Stuck In Testicles."

"I've never needed a guide before," Jongin says, "but I've also never done anything like this for an assignment."

"Yeah, I looked you up. You don't have a lot of articles under your name, but I read that one about the winter festival in Japan. It looked beautiful. Your writing did it justice, I think."

Jongin's face heats up under the weight of the praise. He's grateful, but also awkward at accepting compliments, so he ignores the praise while trying not to be rude. "I haven't done a lot of assignments yet. I only recently graduated from fact-checking and finishing up side articles that aren't important enough to warrant credit beyond initials. This is my first 'real' assignment."

"I'm excited to see your article when it comes out," Minseok says, grinning widely at him. Jongin's returning smile is more reserved, but genuine. The article won't be out for a while; he won't be able to even start writing it until he gets back to South Korea in August. "Will you write about me?"

"Probably. I'll make sure I only say good things, though."

Minseok laughs freely. He's cute when he does. When Jongin laughs, truly laughs, it's ugly and full-bodied. "I don't know. We're going to be spending every minute of every day with each other for the next foreseeable future. There's a chance you'll be sick of me by the end of it." If first impressions are to be believed, Jongin doubts that will be the case, but he only smiles uncomfortably and looks out the window again.

They roll into Duluth unexpectedly, rolling forests and crop fields all of a sudden dropping off into a large port town. The most remarkable feature is, predictably, Lake Superior. "That's a _lake?_ " Jongin asks. The water roils like the ocean, is a deep blue like the ocean. There are huge hulking ships docked in the harbor and sailboats in the distance, their white sails brandished proudly.

"You look like a puppy looking out a window," Minseok says, and Jongin pulls back. There's a fading mark on the window left behind by his nose. "Yes, that's Lake Superior."

Jongin has seen the ocean plenty of times, and he'd known Lake Superior is big, but for some reason, he hadn't been expecting the vastness of it in real life. Then his attention is drawn away by the actual city itself, how there are houses and other structures built not only in the valley and along the shore, but also on the hillside framing the valley. There's an interesting clash of old and new buildings. Jongin's fingers itch for his camera.

Minseok pulls the car off of the freeway and into a quiet neighborhood. The new-old fusion is evident in the mid-20th century style of the houses, but renovated to be just as modern as any house built today. The house Minseok parks in front of is white and clean, the yard a vibrant shade of green. There's a small rainbow flag hung in front of his door and a political sign dug into the yard by the mailbox.

"This is Baekhyun's house," Minseok says, turning off the car. He helps Jongin carry his things into the house and offers him a guest bedroom. "I'll make dinner in a little bit," he promises. "There's a bathroom at the end of the hall; feel free to use the shower, if you want."

Jongin takes him up on the offer, then holes up in the guest room to update Sehun and Taemin with his first impressions of America.

Dinner is spaghetti with garlic bread, and the warmth of the meal combined with the fullness of his stomach makes him realize how tired he is. When he yawns, Minseok says, "You can go ahead and get to bed whenever you want, Jongin. Tomorrow we'll unpack and go shopping for whatever backpacking gear you need."

Jongin tiredly agrees. His apology for not being better company is waved off. He doesn't even remember hitting the bed before he falls asleep.

* * *

_Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt._  
John Muir

* * *

Minseok had told Jongin in their emails to bring an outfit appropriate to hike in. Jongin hadn't been sure what that entailed, so he'd gone simple with jeans and a plain t-shirt. At Minseok's behest, Jongin makes a pile of everything he plans on bringing and wearing on the trip, and then steps back so Minseok can sort through it. The first thing Minseok does is tut at Jongin's choice of clothing. He holds up the t-shirt. "We have a saying on trail," Minseok says. "'Cotton kills.'" He says it in English. He puts down the shirt and exchanges it for the jeans. "And denim is just as bad, if not worse. It's heavy and doesn't dry easy."

"Oh," Jongin says in a small voice, feeling chastised. "I thought the denim would just keep me from getting scratched up, or something."

Minseok pats Jongin on the shoulder. "Don't worry! I didn't expect you to be ready to go right away. That's why I said we'll go shopping today. We'll get something that's easy to move around in and that dries easily." The next thing Minseok picks up is Jongin's deodorant. "No deodorant."

Jongin pauses, waiting for the punchline, before he realizes there is none. "At all?" he says slowly. He had assumed backpacking was dirty business, but deodorant has always been something he had taken for granted. He's going to be covered in sweat and dirt and who knows what else without anything to mask it.

"At all," Minseok says. "It smells good, which means it also smells good to animals. Like bears."

"Bears?" Jongin repeats. "There are bears on trail?"

"Yep." Noticing Jongin chewing on his lower lip, he adds, "But just black bears. They're small, as far as bear sizes go, and they're not aggressive like grizzly bears. The reason why we don't want to attract them, though, is because they like to steal food. Good-smelling things like deodorant and perfume is basically like waving around a neon sign saying, 'Come to our campsite! We have yummy food!'"

Bears are bears no matter how harmless Minseok tries to make them out to be, and real bears are probably nothing like Jongin's stuffed animal collection he's absolutely not telling Minseok he has in his bedroom at home.

"What else do you need? A water bottle, you'll need at least one that can hold a thousand milliliters. When you're on trail, you gotta 'Hydrate to dominate,' as we like to say." He uses English to recite the saying again. "Your sleeping bag is okay, but maybe we'll get you a mummy bag if we have a hard time fitting things into the packs. You'll need a flannel button-up, because we're not gonna lug your sweatshirt around, and your rain jacket isn't going to keep you warm. A sleeping pad, obviously . . ." It's clear Minseok is talking to himself at this point, so Jongin lets him mumble while he pulls out his phone to send a message to Sehun on Kakao. _My guide says there are bears on trail!_ He adds a distressed sticker for good measure.

The reply is almost instantaneous. _jongin you LOVE bears. you have bear stuffed animals, bear clothes, bear stickers, bear mugs, bear slippers, a bear blanket. this should be a dream come true!_ The sentences are broken up between multiple messages sent in rapid succession. Sehun doesn't ever finish his thoughts before sending them. It's the complete opposite from Jongin, who sometimes takes too long to reply because he "overthinks everything," according to Taemin.

"Ah, you'll leave your phone here, too, when we go on trail," Minseok adds, nodding his head towards the device in Jongin's hands. "It'll help you 'Disconnect and reconnect,' so to speak, but mostly because phones tend to break on trail, and we have no way of keeping it charged." Jongin frowns and lowers his phone.

It becomes evident within the very first store they visit that Minseok is a practical shopper. For some things, like water bottles, he borrows from Baekhyun or himself. For gear that doesn't require any particular quality, they just get from the general store. Others, like clothing and a sleeping bag, he gets from a store that specializes in outdoor activities.

It's at this store that Jongin puts on a hiking backpack for the first time. Jongin clips the straps around his waist and chest and tightens the buckles. Minseok adjusts the length of the shoulder straps and then tightens all of the buckles even more. Empty, the pack doesn't hurt, but Jongin can already imagine what it will feel like when it's filled with camping gear. "Isn't this too tight?"

Minseok shakes his head. "Believe me, you'll want your hips and chest to carry as much weight as possible to ease the strain on your shoulders and back."

It's called a _back_ pack for a reason, Jongin wants to say, but this isn't Sehun or Taemin, not someone he's known for years.

Minseok walks right past the display of pest repellent without a second glance, but Jongin slows down. "Hey, shouldn't we get bear spray?"

"Nah. Black bears will run off if you shout at them or throw rocks or sticks, especially if you're in groups. I doubt we'll even see one up close, Jongin."

Jongin doesn't want to get personal with real bears, but the thought of throwing anything at one makes him sad. To distract himself, he asks Minseok something that's been on his mind since the airport: "So, these Baekhyun and Chanyeol people. Why are they coming with us?"

"We all thought it'd be fun. I'm not doing this for a organized tour, and I feel more comfortable in small groups, anyways." Minseok answers. They're looking at hiking boots now. "I normally wouldn't want you hiking in anything that hasn't been broken in yet, but you don't have any boots," he mumbles, inspecting each pair closely. To Jongin, he continues, "Baekhyun is a Duluth native. Or, well, Cloquet, but that's basically Duluth. Chanyeol and I are both from Southern Minnesota, but we all went to university together here in Duluth, which is how we met. Chanyeol and I have hiked part of the SHT before, and Baekhyun hiked all of it in one go a few years back." He holds out a pair of boots in front of Jongin. "Try these on. We'll just get you thick hiking socks."

There must be some expression on his face that makes Minseok place a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. Chanyeol is a really good guy and a people pleaser, and Baekhyun has a way of charming everyone even if they don't want to like him at first." He speaks confidently, and Jongin suspects that he might have first-hand experience.

They go out for lunch, finish up their shopping, and return to Baekhyun's house. As he goes through the receipts, Jongin is thankful that his company is sponsoring this trip. Backpacking isn't cheap. He could probably buy groceries for a month with the money spent on his new backpack alone.

Jongin is opening his new gear in the guest room, taking it all out of the packaging and organizing it into a new pile for packing, when there's the sound of a door opening and then a loud, drawn-out yell, followed by a declaration of, "I'm never driving through North Dakota again!" Jongin flinches at the yell, but forces himself to creep out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

There are two men with duffel bags crowding in through the front door, and Minseok standing in front of them with his hands on his hips. "I told you," he says.

The shorter of the two men whines. He has droopy eyes and a droopy mouth. He looks a bit like a puppy. "That's a terrible way of welcoming me home. I'm leaving."

"Thank God," Minseok says, deadpan, making the shorter whine more. Minseok grins at the taller man— _very_ tall, Jongin notes—and holds out a hand to grip the other's before pulling him into a one-armed hug. "Good to see you, Chanyeol!"

"It's been a while," the tall man says, and, woah, his voice is a lot deeper than his face suggests. So if the tall one is Chanyeol, that makes the shorter one Baekhyun, Jongin notes. Chanyeol's almond-shaped eyes catch his over Minseok's head. "Oh. Hello! Are you the photojournalist?"

It's a simple question, but Jongin hadn't been prepared to interact with new people quite yet, and he can feel himself shrink back as both Minseok and Baekhyun turn to look at him as well. "U-uh." The switch from Korean to English is sudden, and Jongin needs a moment to re-calibrate.

"Yeah, this is Jongin," Minseok cuts in, and Jongin is both relieved and embarrassed. "He flew in yesterday, and today we went shopping." The _He's tired and might be a little out of it_ is implied loud and clear.

"Nice to meet you!" Baekhyun drops his duffel bag to bounce closer, close enough that Jongin can see the darker roots growing in under his dyed hair, and he has to force himself not to scramble back up the stairs. If the man had a tail, Jongin is sure it would be wagging. "So, Chanyeol and I were taking bets on how many hiking-related catchphrases Minseok has used on you so far. Has it been a lot?"

"Excuse me?"

"You know. Like, 'Cotton Kills.'"

"Oh. He's used that one, and, uh . . ." Jongin searches his memory. "'Hydrate to dominate?' I think?"

"That's it?" Baekhyun scrunches his nose. "That's not even how the second one goes! Everyone knows it's 'Hydrate or diedrate.'"

"It's really not," says Minseok.

"'Disconnect and reconnect,'" Jongin offers next.

Baekhyun just crows in amusement at that one. "That's not even a real saying anymore. He's making shit up, or he got it from some stupid quote he saw on Pinterest. He loves Pinterest, even if he won't admit it. I've seen him looking at it on his phone."

Minseok protests in the background while Chanyeol comes up behind Baekhyun and pulls him back by his shirt collar, making the latter yip in protest. "Not everyone likes being jumped up on when they're meeting you for the first time, Baek, you're not a dog." He holds out his hand for Jongin to cautiously shake. "Nice to meet you, Jongin. I'm Chanyeol." His hand is large and warm and dry. His ears are big and have black plugs in the lobes. Chanyeol's hair is black, but parted at the side in a handsome coif.

"Nice to meet you," Jongin weakly echoes. There's a lot to take in. He's trying not to stare like a creep, but the photographer in him wants to assess every new detail, from Baekhyun's boxy smile and button nose to the shape of Chanyeol's ears and the breadth of his shoulders.

"I put Jongin up in the guest room," Minseok says. "I figured you and Chanyeol would be okay with sharing the bed in your room, and I'll take the couch."

"What if I wanted to cuddle with you," Baekhyun says with an exaggerated pout.

"I'd rather take the floor," Minseok says wryly, but his mouth twists like he's trying to keep down a smile. "Tomorrow we'll go shopping for food and officially pack, and the day after that we'll head out. Junmyeon—that's another person we went to school with, Jongin, he works for the DNR up here—said he'll drive us to the trailhead."

"Sounds like a plan, captain," Chanyeol says. His voice really is nice to listen to, Jongin thinks distantly.

Jongin helps Minseok make dinner while Chanyeol and Baekhyun unpack and take turns in the shower before they all sit down to eat together. Baekhyun is bright and noisy, and Jongin finds it as fascinating as he does intimidating. Chanyeol is just as talkative, but less . . . yippy. He shows genuine interest in Jongin's career, and, as though noticing Jongin's aversion to loud noises, his voice gets a bit softer when he addresses him, making it easier for Jongin to open up.

Or maybe Jongin is just making things up. He's still fighting off the jet lag.

* * *

_You need special shoes for hiking—and a bit of a special soul as well._  
Terri Guillemets

* * *

On the morning they plan to leave, Jongin stumbles into the bathroom to put in his contacts. He had debated whether or not to use his monthly contacts or his glasses on trail, but decides to go with contacts. Glasses can easily be broken or lost, he reasons. As he opens his contacts case, a figure steps through the open door, making Jongin jolt, the case lid clattering back down on the counter.

"Oh, sorry for scaring you," Chanyeol's says, his deep voice rough with sleep. "Didn't realize you were in here. Thought Baek left the light on all night again." He rubs his eye while the other squints at Jongin. He's not wearing a shirt.

"It's okay," Jongin says, tearing his eyes away and forcing his hands to be steady so he can put in his contacts.

"Are you planning to wear those on the trail?"

Jongin pauses. "Yes?"

"If you have glasses, you should wear those, instead," Chanyeol suggests. He yawns and stretches his arms up, and Jongin looks away again. "You don't want your fingers to be digging in your eyes when they're dirty all the time."

Jongin hesitates, but then decides to trust Chanyeol. He's been on trail more than Jongin has, after all. He puts the lid back on the case, thanks Chanyeol, and leaves the bathroom, careful not to let their bodies touch.

Later, when he brings his gear down to the living room as Minseok requested, he's wearing his glasses. Chanyeol flashes him a thumbs up. "That's a nice look on you, Jongin," Baekhyun calls out, and Jongin mumbles a thanks and ducks his head.

They all have their piles of personal gear separated. Minseok had explained that they're allowed one "luxury item" each, something to pack along to pass time, and Jongin has chosen his notebook to write down his thoughts during his travels. It sits on top of his lightweight rain jacket on his pile. In the center of the room is a stack of their shared supplies, like their food for the first stretch of trail, their cooking supplies, food, tent, and the first aid kit. They're all dressed in their trail clothes, nylon-and-polyester-based pants and t-shirts and wool socks under hiking boots, except for—

"Really, Chanyeol?" Minseok asks, tone flat.

Chanyeol holds out the bottom of his very cotton-based shirt. It's tie-dyed rainbow, and there's a picture of a man sitting cross-legged underneath it, the words "MOD SUN" stretched across Chanyeol's chest. "We need good vibes on this trip," he says with a grin. "If I bring Mod, good vibes are guaranteed."

"What's guaranteed is you feeling like a wet dog the whole time," Minseok huffs. "Advertising your interests as some sort of weird mating call isn't worth rain and sweat sticking to you all day."

As Baekhyun barks out a laugh, Chanyeol doesn't even look phased. "You're really the last person to judge others for showing off interests," he says, gesturing broadly at Minseok. Jongin thinks he means something about how Minseok's shirt has the word "Patagonia" on the side of his chest, and how his baseball cap has the same words below what Jongin assumes to be the logo. Jongin remembers seeing the same logo on Minseok's backpack.

"That's different," Minseok insists. "Whatever. You're a big boy, so you can make your own choices." Chanyeol just grins.

They begin to divvy up the shared materials into 4 piles. Jongin takes pictures as they move things around as Minseok double and triple checks that someone has the cooking kit, the water purifier, the sunscreen and bug spray. His camera is going to stay strapped around his neck the whole time. He doesn't want to risk it being crushed in his backpack. Besides, he's not sure how he's going to fit everything in his pack as it is; it's big, but there are a lot of things that he has to somehow fit in there. Once Minseok, finally satisfied that their supply list is accounted for, gives the go-ahead, he begins the Herculean task of tetrising all of his gear.

"Ah, here." Chanyeol shuffles on his knees over to Jongin. "These straps on the side here," and here he pauses to tug on some straps along the side of Jongin's pack, "they can be used to buckle things like your sleeping pad and bag onto the sides."

"Thank you," Jongin says. Their arms brush together. Jongin is keenly aware of the fact that he had put deodorant on this morning, even if Minseok had told him not to. With Chanyeol's advice, he's able to fit everything in his bag.

Once everything is packed, and Baekhyun, finally exasperated rather than amused, convinces Minseok that _Yes, the emergency phone is in my bag, you don't need to unpack everything to check for it_ again, it's only a short period of waiting until the man driving them to the trailhead arrives. Junmyeon is another Korean-American, and he has thick eyebrows and a small, pretty mouth that smiles kindly at Jongin as he introduces himself. "I work nearby for the DNR, which is, ah, like the American version of the Ministry of Environment?"

Junmyeon helps them load everything into his little Honda Civic. Between five adult men and four very full backpacks that can hold at least 50 liters each, plus tent parts, sleeping pads, and sleeping bags hooked on the sides, and each with a filled water bottle in the side pockets, it's a tight fit. Jongin is squished in the back with Baekhyun and Minseok while Chanyeol, the largest of them all, gets relegated to the passenger seat. Jongin's backpack is uncomfortable in his lap and Baekhyun's weight squishes him up against the car door each time they make a right turn. His fingers tap a rhythm into his knee, nervous, unsure, and maybe just a little bit excited.

They're not in the car for long. Jongin watches the mismatched buildings of Duluth fall away from them as fast as they had appeared a few days ago, as they make their way down the cliff and towards the vastness of Lake Superior. The city gives way fast to an unkempt two-lane road framed by tall trees, a road seemingly only used by the owners of the occasional driveway that leads to some house hidden behind yet more trees.

Then Junmyeon turns left, and they're parking in the small trailhead parking lot. There's no one and nothing else there, just a little clearing and an outhouse, and it hits Jongin that this is real. This is happening. Jongin has never been more acutely aware of his upcoming adventure until now, not even when he was boarding the plane, not when he saw his name in neat Hangul and English on Minseok's poster board, not when they packed their bags this morning. He can see the start of the trail, marked not with pavement or even gravel, but with dirt exposed by thousands of pairs of feet. Jongin's own two feet will soon join them.

For now, he plants them down on the parking lot ground, following the others' examples. "This is it," Junmyeon announces, following them out. "I'm kind of regretting not taking time off to go with you guys. It's been a while since I've been on trail with all of you."

"Next time, Junmyeon," Chanyeol promises, hooking his arm around Junmyeon and pulling him in for a hug made awkward by the fact that Chanyeol's backpack, now on, leaves nowhere to put Junmyeon's hands.

"You have the emergency phone, right? Call me if you need anything. Good luck, stay safe!"

Jongin hefts his backpack onto his back, and as all of the weight settles on his shoulders, he realizes with a sense of foreboding that while the weight might be manageable now, it's definitely going to wear on him within a few miles. He buckles the waist and chest straps like Minseok taught him, tight so that it takes some pressure off of his shoulders and redistributes it to his hips. They do a final check to make sure none of their water bottles slipped out in the car, and then they're waving Junmyeon goodbye.

"Are you ready?" Chanyeol asks. He's looking at Jongin.

Jongin takes in a deep breath, clutches his camera around his neck, and nods. "Yes," Jongin says, "I'm ready."

The first step is all at once both overwhelming and anticlimactic; it marks the official start of their adventure, and it's to be followed by many more. Jongin focuses on following Minseok and Baekhyun in front of him, on not slowing down Chanyeol behind him. They walk in a line, Minseok had explained earlier, so that they don't widen the trail more than they have to. Just like this, together they'll walk 271 of the Superior Hiking Trail's 324 miles.

Jongin has to keep himself from slowing everyone down to take more pictures than he needs to. He only has one memory card for this whole trip, and while it can hold a lot of pictures, he won't have room to take a picture of every single tree with bulbous deformities that Baekhyun explains are called "burls," or every strange, alien-like plant that curls up from the ground. But he stares openly with fascination and wonder and tries to ingrain everything into is brain. This time of year is just a little too early for northern Minnesota to show flowers besides dandelions, the warmth not having stayed long enough to coax the blooms to unfold. But the green of the plant life and the blue of the sky are vibrant enough to make up for it. There's a cool breeze that trickles through the tree trunks, pushed towards them by Lake Superior, and it soothes across Jongin's hairline as sweat begins to bead there. He can't capture this feeling with his camera, but he's already making mental notes on how he'll describe it in his article when he gets around to writing it weeks from now.

He thought he'd be able to hold out longer, but the weight of his backpack quickly becomes arduous. There's a strain in his shoulders even with the belt strap, and he thinks that maybe he didn't pull it tight enough, but he's too self-conscious to ask the group to pause so he can adjust it. He powers through the feeling, focusing instead on the dull thud of their feet against the ground, the strength in his thighs and calves as they propel him forward, and the sweet lingering smell of petrichor.

Just a bit farther, he tells himself. Minseok had said they will cover only a few miles each day. But the trail goes on and on, and each time their campsite doesn't appear around the next sharp turn or at the top of the next steep hill, Jongin becomes more and more dejected.

To add insult to injury, Baekhyun suddenly calls out, "Ah, it's been _forever_ since I've been on trail. This feels so nice!"

Behind him, Chanyeol's voice is the low rumble of quiet thunder. "Same. You'd think working in environmental education would have you outside more often, but it's been a while since I've done anything like this just for the pleasure of it."

"How are you holding up, Jongin?" Minseok calls back from the front.

"I'm fine," Jongin says.

They don't talk that often, though, and when they do, it's usually Baekhyun pointing out some new type of plant or insect, or when Minseok has them all stop for a mandatory water break. All of them have labored voices, but they don't sound as winded as Jongin does. It makes sense. The most activity Jongin gets on a regular basis is running to catch the next train.

He has no clue how he's going to manage doing well over 400 kilometers of this. He tries to stop looking forward to when they'll finish this stretch of trail, especially because it's only day one, but he can't help but fixate on it, and his hyper-awareness seems to add distance to their quota.

Their hike starts with the sun peaking in the sky above them, but as the day drags on, it drags the sun with it, pulling it until it no longer hovers right above their heads. The shadows grow longer, and the shade helps to cool them down as the breeze settles.

It's not until Jongin grimly accepts that he's going to sweat away all of his illicit deodorant that he sees the sign for a campsite marked with a tent engraving, as blue as a robin's egg. "That's it," Minseok announces, pointing to the fork in the trail before them. If Jongin had any moisture left in his body, he would cry in relief, but all liquid he could have possibly used as tears is covering his skin in a thin layer of sweat. Instead of crying, he cracks a small smile at Baekhyun's excited whoop.

The camp is a small clearing with a campfire ring framed on two sides by simple wooden benches. They unclip their backpacks and let gravity yank them down, and Jongin can practically hear his shoulders singing in relief as he reaches up and digs his fingers into the muscles there. Minseok and Chanyeol are the first to recover, pulling out the parts of the tent from their bags and bringing them over to the flattest area of the site to set it up.

Baekhyun plops down next to Jongin. "You hanging in there okay?"

"I think so. It turns out that walking is a lot harder when you're carrying, like, fifteen kilos on your shoulders." Jongin doesn't know how many pounds that would be, and he's not sure if he's actually carrying that much, but it certainly feels like it.

"It's definitely a workout! Your legs are gonna look _fantastic_ by the end of the summer." Baekhyun's eyebrows tilt up in concern though, his eyes wide. "You shouldn't be carrying all of that weight on your shoulders, though. If you feel like you are, your hip straps are probably too low, or they're not tight enough." He stands up and puts his hands on his waist, emphasizing their shape. "If you have wide hips like me, it's easier because it's like a natural shelf for the straps to sit on. But if you're like Chanyeol, and your torso is very straight, you have to really make sure that the straps are pulled tight."

"I don't think I had them tight enough," Jongin admits. "I'll make sure that I have them on right tomorrow."

"Having your straps adjusted right will make your backpacking experience at least ten times more enjoyable, I guarantee." He stretches with a cute puppy-like whine, then, like water sliding off a duck's back, his exhaustion melts away. "Hey, wanna come help me get a fire started?"

Not particularly. It's amazing how comfortable an old, hard bench can be when he's exhausted. "Sure," Jongin says anyways. He stands up, ignoring the ache in his legs, and follows Baekhyun into the woods.

Baekhyun shows him how to gather different sizes of branches, explaining how the smaller pieces, kindling, will catch on quicker than the bigger pieces of wood. Logs take longer to catch but burn longer. "We want a lot of tinder to start, but once we get a fire going, we'll mostly just add logs." Baekhyun picks up a strip of white bark from the ground. "You see this? This is birch bark. Birch bark is magical when it comes to starting fires. You know how quickly and easily paper catches? Birch is like that. Nature's tinder."

Jongin points to a white-trunked tree. "That's birch?"

"Yeah, but don't peel it off the trees! Only take stuff you find on the ground. It's a part of the whole 'Leave No Trace' ethics."

"'Leave No Trace?'" Jongin asks.

"Oh. I thought Minseok would've explained that to you. It's basically a set of rules that you should follow when you're in nature so everyone can enjoy it. Minseok's, like, actually certified to teach it, so I'll let him be the one to lecture at you later."

Jongin hadn't realized that backpacking had rules beyond "Don't die" or something among those lines. He makes a hum to acknowledge Baekhyun and continues finding dry sticks and branches to use in their fire.

When they get back, Chanyeol and Minseok have finished setting up the tent. Chanyeol's eyes light up at the armfuls of firewood they hold. "Can I start the fire?"

"I was gonna show Jongin how to start a fire."

"I'll teach him. Please, Baek, I really want to."

Baekhyun snorts. "You're a grown man and yet you're still as fascinated with fire as a kid. Sure, go for it." He deposits his load next to the fire pit and goes to unpack his bag. Chanyeol beckons for Jongin to do the same.

"So, there are two ways that we start a fire, but I'll do the tepee way for right now, because that's the one most people imagine when they think 'campfire.'"

Chanyeol's hands are big and roped with veins, and Jongin has no choice but to study them placing the smallest kindling in the center of the pit and adding slightly larger ones on top of them. He leans the big branches against each other in a pyramid, so that they come together in a point over the kindling. "Can you hand me that strip of birch bark?"

Jongin does. Chanyeol's hand is warm where it brushes up against Jongin's.

Chanyeol lights the birch bark, and it catches fire as quickly as Baekhyun said it would. He slots the burning birch through the branches so that it rests on the kindling, leans down, and cups his hands over his mouth to blow air on the fire. The fire flickers and leaps onto the kindling, and soon enough, there's a little flame dancing in the pyramid.

"Now, in a little bit, the branches will catch. Once we get a sustained fire going, we can just throw logs on top of it."

"I didn't realize there was a science to starting fires," Jongin says.

"Oh yeah, definitely. Tomorrow, I'll show you how to make a log cabin campfire. That's honestly my favorite one, but this one is more aesthetic." Jongin can't remember what that word means, but he nods along. "Now that we've got that set up, do you wanna go to the creek to get some water? I'll show you how to use the water filtering drops."

Harvey Creek, labelled as such with a small wooden sign, is small and clear, and it spills out into a pond. As Chanyeol dips the pot into the water, Jongin squints out to the other side of the pond, where he sees a large structure that he can't identify. "Chanyeol, what is that?"

"What is what?" Chanyeol glances up where Jongin points. "Oh! That's a beaver dam. There are a lot of beavers up here. You'll see a lot more of them by the time we get to the end of the trail."

But knowing they're common doesn't make this particular dam less interesting. "Do beavers live there now?"

"Looks like it. If they didn't, this area wouldn't be ponded."

Jongin narrows his eyes at the pond, looking for any sign that the beavers are out, but the pond is still, silent, except for the whispers of long grasses and the croak of frogs.

Chanyeol notices his scrutiny. "Ah, now's not the best time to see them. Cloudy days and early mornings or late evenings are peak beaver-viewing times. Actually, most big animals up here are like that."

Jongin can't help but feel a little let down, but there is comfort in knowing that this won't be the last dam he sees. He powers up his camera and snaps a couple of pictures, and then a few more at the campsite. It's far from the last camp they'll make, but it's their first, and it's important to Jongin that he remembers this.

They sit down on the benches around the campfire and have a dinner of plain rice and dehydrated beans, and it tastes disgusting, but Jongin spoons his bowl clean. He doesn't realize how hungry he is until he takes the first bite, and then he's _ravenous._ The feeling is shared with his companions, if the way they fall silent and shovel everything into their mouths is anything to go by. Minseok cooked, so Chanyeol and Baekhyun wash the dishes, giving Jongin more time to write in his notebook.

When Minseok sits next to him, Jongin asks timidly, "So, if we need to use the bathroom, do we just go out and . . . find a tree, or something?" His face feels red by the end of the question, but he can't hold it in anymore, both literally and proverbially. He hasn't relieved himself since before they left Baekhyun's house.

Although something like amusement glitters in Minseok's eyes, he doesn't laugh, a fact for which Jongin is grateful. "All campsites have a latrine, which is basically a toilet in the middle of the woods. We have a bathroom bag with toilet paper and hand sanitizer." He points to a blue drawstring bag that leans against the end of the bench. "If it's there, that means the latrine is free. If it's not there, it means someone took it, and they're using the latrine. If you walk a little way back up the path we came down, there's a sign that says latrine and a small path that breaks away. Go down that path. You'll find it."

Jongin thanks Minseok, grabs the bag, and tries not to feel nervous.

For some reason, he had been expecting one of those portable toilet stalls. Instead, at the end of the path, is a small clearing with a literal toilet bolted to the ground. There are no stalls, no walls. Nothing. It's just . . . a toilet.

Jongin is startled into a laugh, even if there's no one to hear it. He can't help but take a picture of the lone toilet. He might not use it in his article, but this is definitely a part of the camping experience that he doesn't want to forget.

* * *

_None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with._  
Frédéric Gros

* * *

Their tent is made to fit four people, but that fit is tight. Jongin requests to sleep at the side of the tent to minimize the amount of people he has to touch, and scoots his sleeping pad over as far as he can without touching the side of the tent. Baekhyun unintentionally ends up smushed against him anyways by the time he wakes up anyways. The side of the tent is cool against his arm.

As they go about making breakfast, Jongin sneaks down to see the beaver dam, hoping to see a glimpse of one of the mammals. There are none to be found, but the sunrise over the pond is pretty and picturesque, and it eases the worst of his disappointment.

"Make sure your straps are tightened as much as possible this time, okay?" Baekhyun says to him as they're packing up. Jongin obeys, yanking them as tight as possible when it's time to leave, and he knows as he pulls his hands away that it's only a matter of time before there will be bruises on his hips. He would prefer that over the soreness of his shoulders, though, and when the first mile passes without them aching, he's relieved enough that he could probably jump up and down. Instead, he bites down a smile. Today will be better.

Their good weather continues, sunny and slightly less windy, but more humid than yesterday. The trail is flat, but it's also muddy, so much so that Jongin thinks Minnesota should have their own version of the Boryeong Mud Festival, or maybe the festival could just relocate here. Jongin wants to walk around the path when it gets muddy, but Minseok plows right through the mud, undeterred, and Jongin has no choice to follow, even if the way his boots sink down with loud squelches makes his skin crawl.

Occasionally, there are long wooden boardwalks that make the trek more or less difficult. Some of the boards are newly placed, so they can safely cross over without worrying about getting their boots stuck in mud, or about losing their grip and slipping. But some of the boardwalks are old or broken, either no longer nailed down or with planks that have cracked in the middle and now sink down into the mud. They have to cross carefully and slowly.

Minseok, Chanyeol, and Baekhyun take turns pointing out different plants to Jongin, giving him a mini lesson for each one. Baekhyun also points out every single insect that they encounter.

"See that one in that hollow tree stump right there?" Baekhyun's trivia often involves holding up the entire line. He points to a terrifying creature with red and yellow stripes, long antennae, and a long, needle-like structure curling out of its abdomen. "That's an Ichnemon Wasp! That's a female, and that long black thing isn't a stinger. It's an ovipositor. She's laying her eggs in that stump." He sounds absolutely besotted.

"It looks light something from a nightmare," Jongin says. He slowly tip-toes off the trail to take a close-up of it anyways.

Baekhyun gasps, offended. "Don't listen to him, sweetheart! I think you're gorgeous," he calls out. "You keep laying those eggs, girl! Pass on those lovely genes!"

"We all majored in the environmental sciences field," Chanyeol explains as they begin walking again, "but Baekhyun also minored in entomology."

"Insects are _so cool,_ " Baekhyun says emphatically.

Minseok groans. "Here we go. We got him started. Now he's never going to shut up."

"No, okay, listen! Insects, though, man, oh man. Did you know insects account for 80% of all species? And that even though we know over 900,000 species of insects, the majority of scientists agree that there are more unknown species of insects than there are known? Some conservative estimates put it at 2 million more insect species, but others say up to 30 million!"

Baekhyun goes into a rant about the wonders of insects, and even though he's horrified, Jongin can't help but listen avidly as they continue walking.

Their next campsite has the same layout as the previous one: two benches cornering a campfire ring, flat areas to set up two or three tents, and a creek that may or may not still be Harvey Creek. There are no signs to name it this time.

Chanyeol follows through with his promise to show Jongin how to make a log cabin structure for their campfire, how to stack the logs in twos so that each layered pair is perpendicular to the pair below it. Jongin decides that he likes this way better, too, because it looks more stable, and he doesn't have to try to make all of the branches line up without them falling.

"Hey, Baek, what bug is this?"

It's after dinner, and they're sitting around the campfire. Jongin has his notebook on his lap as he scribbles down notes from the day. There's still enough light in the evening to see what he's writing, but it's dark enough that he can see the light cast from the fire dancing across the page.

He looks up to see Chanyeol bounding over to them. There's some sort of beetle crawling on his hand. "I mean, I've seen them a lot," Chanyeol continues, "but I don't know what they are."

"It's a Japanese beetle," Baekhyun says. "They're an invasive species."

"I love him," Chanyeol declares. "He's a good, strong boy. I'm naming him Atlas."

"I love him, too," Baekhyun emphatically agrees, while Minseok meets Jongin's eyes to roll his own.

Jongin giggles and holds his hand up to his mouth to hide it. "Chanyeol, can I see it?"

"Sure!" Chanyeol steps closer to where Jongin sits. The beetle has moved to the side of Chanyeol's index finger. Its shell is an iridescent copper color, and there is a line of white spots on either side of it. It's kind of pretty, so Jongin raises his camera. Chanyeol's face smiles behind his side-pointed finger, and the insect from this angle is right in front of his nose. His face flickers yellow in the firelight. Jongin focuses the view on the beetle and not Chanyeol's face.

When he lowers the camera, his own eyes fall on that grin, not the beetle. Curiously, his heart stutters for a moment.

* * *

_Walking, by virtue of having the earth’s support, feeling its gravity, resting on it with every step, is very like a continuous breathing in of energy._  
Frédéric Gros

* * *

Fox Farm Pond was formed by a beaver dam long enough ago that the pond has been given a name; most of the ponds here are nameless because ponding is usually temporary or seasonal. The pond is denoted with a small wooden sign in the robin egg blue writing that Jongin is becoming used to. It's the third dam that Jongin has seen on trail so far, but he has yet to see any beavers to accompany their home. While Baekhyun and Chanyeol go off to find firewood and Minseok starts pulling out food for dinner, Jongin goes to observe the pond and frown at the lack of rodents.

"Beavers don't like being active when it's very sunny," Minseok tells him when he asks about it. "The clouds are moving in though. Maybe we'll see one soon. We'll definitely see some by the end of the trail."

"That's what Chanyeol said, too," Jongin says, unable to field the pout from his voice. There have been a few clouds in the sky today, but not enough to warrant a whole "cloudy" descriptor. Jongin sighs dejectedly, and Minseok laughs. "Come here, Jongin. I brought embroidery floss as my luxury item to make bracelets. I'll show you how to make one so you can take your mind off of being sad about the beavers."

Minseok doesn't strike Jongin as the type of person to make jewelry, but Jongin holds his tongue, not wanting to offend. He obediently sits down next to Minseok on the bench. Minseok has him pick out three colors of string, and Jongin picks two shades of blue and a dark goldenrod, thinking of what the blue, sunny sky looks like over Lake Superior. Minseok chooses his own colors and shows Jongin how to fold the strings in half to make a knot in the middle, how to loop it through the small carabiner on his backpack to keep it in place. He knots the tail of one strand a few times around the five others until it makes a solid band. Once he's satisfied with the width, he drops the tail and grabs another of a different color to repeat the process. "You keep going like this until you get to the length that you want. When you get there, I'll show you how to knot it off and tie the tails through the loop."

Jongin takes well to the challenge of bracelet-making. His fingers are much larger than Minseok's, and clumsier in their inexperience, so he has to focus extra hard, unable to reply to Minseok's dialogue without pausing. Minseok seems to understand this, and drops conversation in favor of picking up an amicable silence. The background ambient sounds aid Jongin's focus. It's windy today, the leaves rustling noisily and the branches clacking against each other, voices . . . shouting . . . ?

Jongin looks up just as two figures crash into the clearing.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol had been gone for longer than it would normally take for people to collect wood for a fire, but Jongin hadn't given it a second thought, too invested in Minseok's lesson. Obviously, they'd done more than collected wood, if wood had been collected at all. The only tree-originated material Jongin sees on their persons are the long branches both of them brandish like swords, which they swing at each other as they scuffle around the clearing. Their shirts have been stripped off, leaving Baekhyun in his hiking pants and Chanyeol in his cargo-style shorts. On their torsos instead is mud, in some places carelessly swiped on and in others carefully(?) designed with lines, swirls, and dots. Baekhyun's face has mud whiskers. Chanyeol's has a mud hand print. There are leaves tucked in their hair and waistbands.

It's ridiculous. Jongin bursts out laughing. It's his first full-bodied laugh since leaving South Korea, the kind that makes him look ugly and uncivilized, the one that Taemin constantly pokes fun at. Jongin can't find it in himself to even care. It feels so good to just . . . laugh. The stretch of his lungs, the loosening of his shoulders.

Encouraged, Baekhyun's and Chanyeol's shouts get louder, taunting and insulting as they circle each other. Baekhyun darts forward, slashing his stick at his opponent's knees. Chanyeol bounces back before swooping downward with his own stick.

"Jesus Christ," Minseok grumbles besides him, "they're grown ass men." But Jongin can hear the smile in his voice even without turning to look.

They watch on in amusement at the mock battle, laughing at the nonsensical (albeit creative) insults they throw at each other, the declarations of superiority. Chanyeol trips over his own feet and tumbles over, just barely catching himself on his elbows and getting his stick up in time to block Baekhyun's downward swing. Baekhyun slashes his stick hard at the tip of Chanyeol's, casting Chanyeol's weapon to the side. He nudges the tip of his own stick under Chanyeol's chin, forcing the taller to freeze. "Surrender, or else!"

Chanyeol's bare chest heaves. "Never!" he bellows, grabbing onto Baekhyun's stick at the same time to yank it out of his grasp, and swatting Baekhyun's butt hard enough that it makes a loud noise. Baekhyun screeches, holds his hands over his rear, and scampers back out of reach. When Chanyeol tosses his legs forward, using his momentum to land on his feet, he rises with his back facing Jongin, the broad expanse textured with the ripples of muscles, and Jongin's laughter abruptly cuts off. He ignores Minseok's questioning glance, unable to provide an explanation.

The mock(?) battle ends with a dramatic impalement, Baekhyun's-former-but-now-Chanyeol's stick slipping right under his armpit as though skewering his chest. Baekhyun groans and stumbles to the ground. Chanyeol roars in triumph, raising his stick high in the air. He turns and locks eyes with Jongin before marching over with a sense of arrogance in his gait. When he kneels in front of Jongin, never once looking away, Jongin can't stop the giggles that make his mouth curl up again.

"Lord Jongin," he starts. "I am pleased to inform you that I have slain the demon that disturbed your slumber last night by ferociously kicking you in his sleep."

Baekhyun is on his feet in an instant. "It was an _accident!_ I said I was sorry!"

"Thank you, Sir Knight," Jongin laughs, trying to fight down the heat in his face.

+++

"Jongin."

He hears the whisper of his name, but it takes him a moment to push through the viscosity between sleep and wakefulness. His name comes again, this time accompanied by a gentle shake. Jongin opens his eyes to see the green side of their tent, and rolls on his back to look up at Chanyeol, who kneels above him. He lets out a questioning noise, and Chanyeol holds up his finger to his mouth. Jongin glances over and sees two lumps on the other side of Chanyeol's abandoned sleeping bag. "Hi, sleepyhead. You wanted to see some beavers, didn't you?"

Beavers, beavers. Beavers? This early in the morning, Jongin's mind has to go through the English to Korean translation to understand what's being said to him, and when it finally clicks, his eyes go wide and he jolts upright, almost headbutting Chanyeol's nose. Jongin whispers an apology, but Chanyeol waves him off with a smile. "Beavers? Are there some out there?"

"Come see!" Then Chanyeol is backtracking out of the tent, and Jongin scrambles to follow him, barely remembering to grab his camera and almost forgetting to check his boots for bugs or animals before shoving his feet into them. He doesn't tie the laces, hoping to keep up with Chanyeol without tripping over their tails.

Chanyeol turns to hold his finger to his mouth again at the water's edge, and then uses the same hand to beckon Jongin closer. The sky is gray, and sunlight shutters down through a single crack in the clouds, white and soft. Fog has settled over the glassy surface of the pond, and Jongin lifts his camera to capture the still magic of the moment.

"Look, do you see them?" Chanyeol speaks softly as he lifts his hands to point. Jongin squints his eyes, but can't see anything past the thatch of cattails. Chanyeol grips his elbow and pulls him forward, arranging them so that Jongin is right in front of Chanyeol, and Chanyeol's arm is flat against Jongin's back, his hand on Jongin's shoulder. He points with his other hand again. "There. Do you see?" His breath is warm against Jongin's nape, prickling the skin it ghosts across.

His attention is stolen away by movement in the water. It swims slowly forward, the thick fur on its back visible through the clear surface as its head remains dry. Its black, beady eyes watch Jongin watch it, quiet and curious. It can't be more than four meters from them.

Jongin forgets he has his camera in his hands. He had been excited to see beavers, of course, but he hadn't been expecting the feelings that come along with it. Tranquil, the desire to not disturb the moment. Awe, that this is a creature that would never be able to live close to metropolitan regions, but Jongin, a city boy through-and-through, gets to witness it.

Jongin kneels down to take photos. The sun slowly seeps through the clouds, providing a soft natural light for Jongin's pictures, and Chanyeol stays with Jongin, a steady and warm presence by his side.

* * *

_The wilderness holds answers to questions we have not yet learned to ask._  
Nancy Wynne Newhall

* * *

Next to the campfire ring at their next campsite are a multitude of glass bottles, presumably once containing beer, although Jongin doesn't recognize the brand. There are a couple of pizza boxes, one in the fire pit and another leaning against a tree nearby. It's a stark contrast to the immaculate campsites they've used so far. If not for the day hikers they occasionally cross, Jongin would have forgotten that they're not the only people who use the trail until now.

To Jongin's surprise, all of his companions are irritated by the mess. Sure, it's not pretty, but Jongin doesn't think it warrants the amount of agitation the other three exhibit. Minseok orders the pizza boxes to be put in the fire pit so they can burn them right away, and then the bottles to be brought together to one spot by the fire ring. He sends Chanyeol and Jongin to collect wood while he and Baekhyun start setting up the tent.

"Why is it so bad?" Jongin asks quietly, a bit intimidated by the collective foul mood. It's the first time he's seen any of them genuinely upset, and he's not sure how to act around them. When Taemin gets mad, Jongin knows to leave him alone to process and calm down. Sehun's temper can be abated with aggressive cuddling. Kyungsoo never gets genuinely mad, and never at Jongin. And his sisters both like to vent and use him as a soundboard before they feel calm again. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Minseok are big question marks.

Chanyeol glances over at Jongin from where he stoops down to pick up a sizable log. The creases between his eyebrows ease, and with it, a fraction of the tension in Jongin's chest. "Has Minseok talked to you about Leave No Trace ethics?" Jongin shakes his head. "Basically, you should treat the trail well enough that no one should know that you were here, so that you can enjoy nature without disturbing it, and so that everyone else after you can enjoy it, too. Once nature gets trashed, it's hard to heal it again. People only come out to do trail maintenance a couple of times a year, and we have no clue when that will be." Chanyeol sighs. "We'd take the trash with us, but we don't have room for it."

It's obvious that they care about the trail so much, and Jongin finds it beautiful.

Setting the pizza boxes on fire seems to soothe all of the ruffled feathers. "It looks like there was still some pizza left on the boxes," Minseok says while using a stick to move the boxes deeper into the flames, "so no animals probably got to it by now, luckily. Whoever did this probably came last night."

"Probably some local kids," Baekhyun says. "It's not like there's any kind of law enforcement that will hike out here, and there's no one to file noise complaints if they come at night."

Minseok hums in agreement. "As long as the glass doesn't break, it'll probably be fine. Maybe we can move the bottles back up to the main trail so a day-hiker will take them, or something."

"What's Leave No Trace?" Jongin asks Minseok later. Baekhyun and Chanyeol are playing a giant game of hangman in the dirt at the outskirts of the campsite, and Minseok and Jongin sit on the benches. Jongin works on another bracelet. The embroidery thread is getting easier for him to work with. By the end of the week, he bets he can make bracelets that actually look good enough to wear. "Baekhyun and Chanyeol have both mentioned it, and you have too, a little bit, but I'd like to know more so I can talk about it in my article."

Minseok finds a good place to finish knotting his bracelet so he can give his full attention to Jongin, so Jongin does the same. "Leave No Trace is an ethics principle. We want to preserve nature as best as we can while experiencing it. That means not littering, obviously, but that also means doing things like walking in a straight line with a group so you don't widen the trail, or not feeding animals so that they become used to being around humans, or not picking flowers. 'Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints.' That sort of deal."

"And there it is, another Minseok quote." Baekhyun and Chanyeol must have finished their game, because they now circle back to the fire. Chanyeol sits down next to Jongin, their thighs almost touching. Baekhyun squats in front of the fire pit, using a stick to nudge the burning logs and provoking a small cloud of embers into dancing above the flames. He continues more seriously, "But he's right. These ecosystems take hundreds of years to form. If invasive species like thistle and tansy and earthworms can hurt an environment, people definitely can."

"Earthworms?" Jongin asks. "Worms are an invasive species?"

"To Minnesota, yeah. Minnesota has no native earthworms, and, like, a third of the earthworms in North America aren't native. They're good for agriculture, but bad for forests, because. Uh. I don't actually remember? Chanyeol, you were the one who actually liked our soils class."

"Trees need different nutrients from crops," Chanyeol explains, picking up Baekhyun's explanation with practiced ease. "Earthworms eat nutrients from soil that crops can't use and secrete nutrients that they do. But the nutrients worms eat are the same kind that trees need, too."

Jongin wants to write this down. He stands up and steps forward, planning to grab his notebook from his backpack. At the same time, however, Baekhyun says, "Hey, remember that one time in our soils lab—" and abruptly stands up and spins around, crashing into Jongin.

Jongin sees it in slow motion, knows he's going to fall before he does. Chanyeol reaches out for him, and he grabs onto the proffered arm, but takes hold too late as he tumbles, landing on his rear. Chanyeol manages to hold him up enough to keep his head from cracking against the ground, but a sting on the side of his calf tells him he didn't get away completely unscathed.

"Are you okay?" Chanyeol asks, worried, as he helps pull Jongin back up. The corner of the bench, Jongin realizes as he inspects the damage, is very sharp. The scrape is messy; it's shallow, but it spans across a whole area where the skin has been scoured off, leaving the skin around and in between the abrasions an angry shade of red.

"Oh my god, Jongin, I'm so sorry," Baekhyun stutters, hovering and hands fluttering back and forth as though he wants to touch Jongin, but he refrains.

"No, it's fine. It's just a scrape," Jongin says. It stings, sure, but everyone focusing their concern on him is making him more anxious than the injury itself.

"Do you need the first aid kit?" Minseok asks. He's already standing up as though to make a move for his backpack.

"No, it's fine!" Jongin repeats. And it is, really. It's not a deep cut, or a true cut at all, really. He's bleeding a tiny bit, but only shallowly, where he can see parts of the skin torn up.

Minseok squats down to look closer. Once he's satisfied that Jongin is telling the truth, he nods and stands back up. "Okay, but if it stings too much, you can always use balsam fir."

"Use . . . what?"

"Ah, I saw one on the way down from the main trail," Chanyeol says, and Jongin doesn't follow at all. Balsam fir? A fir meant a Christmas tree, right? But balsam? "Come with me, Jongin. I'll show you the magic of balsam firs!"

Jongin doesn't understand what they're talking about, but he dutifully follows Chanyeol anyways. They walk the hill that leads back up to the main trail, but after about fifty meters, Chanyeol stops following the trail, veering off into the forest. Chanyeol leads him to a tall coniferous tree, beckoning him closer until he's right next to the trunk.

"So this is a balsam fir tree," Chanyeol begins, looking strangely excited with his wide eyes and loud voice. He taps his finger against the trunk and then traces a bubble under the bark. There are multiple such protrusions along the length of the trunk. "These are called blisters. That's where you'll find its resin." He digs his fingernail into the blister, and immediately, clear, sap-like liquid oozes out. "Try it."

Jongin hesitantly moves next to Chanyeol and reaches out to puncture a blister in the same way. The bark breaks without much fight, and resin quickly covers the tip of Jongin's finger. He blinks at the feeling. "It's sticky."

"Balsam fir resin is like the cure-all of nature. It's an antiseptic, a topical painkiller, and the stickiness keeps wounds closed. You can use it in tea, too, for stuff like bronchitis and flu. And on top of all of that, it burns well, so if you find branches that have been knocked off, we can use it in a campfire."

Chanyeol picks up a smooth stick and pops open a few blisters with it, then turns it perpendicular to the trunk to cover the flat side with the resin. He then squats down at Jongin's feet, glancing up. "Is this okay?"

Jongin isn't quite sure what Chanyeol is asking permission to do, but he nods anyways. Chanyeol brings the stick forward and gently dabs the sap onto Jongin's scrape. The effect is immediate, as fast as any topical ointment he could buy at a drug store, and the sting is swept away by the tingling balm. The smell wafts up, crisp and herbaceous like a Christmas tree.

Chanyeol looks up at him, and Jongin remembers this same view when Chanyeol had knelt at his feet after he and Baekhyun's mock battle. "Does that feel better?"

His scrape feels much better, but not his heart, which is suffering an intense stutter for some awful reason. Chanyeol, with his handsome features and compassionate mien, looks like a prince. "Yeah," Jongin says, swallowing past the sudden thickness in his throat, as sticky and viscous as balsam fir resin.

Baekhyun collects a few handfuls of bright red juneberries as an apology for knocking Jongin over. They're sweet and tart, but also leave his mouth feeling unpleasantly dry. He eats all of them anyways so Baekhyun knows that his apology, while unnecessary, is accepted.

* * *

_In the time of the sacred sites and the crashing of ecosystems and worlds, it may be worth not making a commodity out of all that is revered._  
Winona Laduke

* * *

The farther north they get, the more the geometry of the land changes, the forest becoming deeper and darker and alive, as though it has a cognition of its own, old and sentient and hungry. The trees that tower over them have survived the eras of settlers and lumberjacks and mining. The romanticist in Jongin wants to attribute that to a will to live, to grow, to thrive. Baekhyun, the academic oblivious to Jongin's poetic leanings, explains the differences between old-growth forests and new-growth ones, and which flora and fauna like which settings, and different struggles both ecosystems face. Jongin finds that information fascinating, too, though, and writes all of it down in his little notebook that he's filling up faster than he had anticipated.

But maybe the other three do feel similar to Jongin, feel the magic that breathes life into the landscape. It's not completely dark yet, but dark enough that Jongin can't write comfortably, so he abandons his notebook in favor of joining their huddle around the fire, trading stories and anecdotes. In a lull in the conversation, Baekhyun says, "Hey, you know what we haven't done yet? We haven't told any campfire stories." He turns to Chanyeol. "You worked with an Ojibwe tribe to learn about how to teach Ojibwe culture, right? You learned a lot of their stories. I've never heard any of them, though."

Chanyeol hums. His face looks warm in the yellow flickering light, his eyes dark and soft. "I can't tell those stories now. They're only allowed to be told in the winter, when the spirits aren't around." He sweeps his gaze around the fire. "I do know a couple of other campfire stories, though, if you want to hear them."

"I haven't heard you tell stories in years," Minseok says with a grin.

Jongin looks at Chanyeol, curious as to what the fuss is about. As if he's guessed Jongin's thoughts, Chanyeol smiles at him before his face goes neutral, a slate wiped clean with a deep breath. When he speaks again, his voice is lower and quieter than usual, one that commands attention and respect. "Once upon a time, in the deep forests of the unsettled northern wilderness, there was a lake. This lake was otherworldly, magical. It could move across the landscape, loudly rumbling as it went, like a peel of thunder. It could transform, becoming as big or as small as it needed. And because it could change places and shapes, it was called the Changing Lake."

He uses his hands and his voice like tools to describe the lake with slow, grand gestures and precise inflections, and Jongin can't help but spare a little attention to the network of veins there. At face value, the plot is childish. But the way Chanyeol tells it, it's anything but.

_The Changing Lake got its powers from one thing: the fear of people. Back in the days of settlers and voyageurs, untamed waters were one of the most dangerous obstacles. The Changing Lake knew this, and would move to places where people were forced to cross it. It would make its waters treacherous and fickle when sailors tried to sail it, and deep and cold when children tried to swim. Greedily, it nurtured fear and reaped it, swallowing it down to fuel its powers._

_The Changing Lake only avoided one group of people: the French-Canadian voyageurs._

_The voyageurs were_ fearless. _They had traveled everywhere, exploring the new country and mapping out its lands. Each one carried two hundred pounds of fur pelts, and had to carry it while portaging their great canoes. They had no time to live off the land, so they had to bring food with them, and when they didn't bring enough, they skipped lunch, going the whole day carrying their monstrous loads without eating. Magical or not, what was a lake to them?_

Movement out of the corner of Jongin's eye. A foe and her two fawns have approached the campfire, less than thirty meters away. Unconcerned with the backpackers, the doe and one of the fawns scavenge the ground for food, while the other fawn daringly walks closer to the campfire, looking as interested in the story as Jongin is. Jongin huffs out a sigh of disbelief, but then his attention is garnered by Chanyeol once more.

_Enraptured by the tales of glory and grit, a boy just shy of adulthood joined the voyageurs. It was his first expedition, and while he would never admit it to the others, he was scared. Not very scared. He was brave enough to join the voyageurs, after all. Just a little._

_But it was enough._

_The voyageurs set off on their expedition with the boy, and the Changing Lake sensed that boy's fear, how it festered in his heart like a pustule ready to burst. Slowly, the Changing Lake crawled across the land, rumbling loudly, growing bigger and bigger as it went. Finally, it crept ahead of the voyageurs, so that it intercepted their next portage._

The family of dear have drawn nearer, and maybe it's not by Chanyeol's narrative skills, but Jongin pretends that it is. Their eyes are big and gentle, and they move with sure, light feet. If he hadn't been so swept up in Chanyeol's story, he would get up and retrieve his camera. The lighting isn't any good now, anyways.

_From the shore, it looked like any other lake. The voyageurs set down their canoes and launched off, paddling as fast as they could, because when you're a voyageur, you can't slow down, not even for a moment._

_The wind slowly started to pick up, and with it, the waves rose higher. Now, the voyageurs, they had faced rougher waters than these, though, and continued on unafraid, all except for the boy. His fear was still there, and it grew in the wake of the choppy weather. The wind whipped faster and faster, and the clouds dimmed darker and darker, and the waves climbed higher and higher, until it was a veritable storm. The voyageurs struggled to keep their canoes steady, but it was in vain. The boy's fear had fueled the Changing Lake too much, and it unleashed its power in full force._

_So the voyageurs did the only thing voyageurs could do. They put down their oars, letting their canoe be tossed and jostled. They took out their pipes and they passed around their matches. The boy looked on in wonder and bewilderment as one of the voyageurs began to sing. "M'en revenant de la jolie Rochelle! J'ai rencontre trois jolies demoiselles!"_

Here, Chanyeol actually breaks out into boisterous song. Jongin doesn't know what the words mean. To his surprise, the deer are unperturbed by the song.

 _One by one, the other voyageurs' voices rose with the first, some harmonizing, some joining the main melody. "C'est l'aviron que nose mene, qui nous mene! C'est l'aviron qui nos mene en haut!" It was one of the songs that they sang at their campfires at the end of a long day, or during their canoeing, when they needed to synchronize their oars. The voyageurs knew that they couldn't change the weather, or the size of the waves. What they_ could _do, though, was remain calm and let whatever was to happen, happen. The boy listened to their song, and slowly but surely, his heart strengthened. A few verses later, his voice, too, joined in with the others'. Steadily, the fear he had felt this whole time shrank and shrank and shrank, each melody beating it down, until he, like all of the other voyageurs, was fearless._

_With the boy's fear vanquished, the Changing Lake had no more fuel for its power. Slowly, the gusts of wind gentled to a cool breeze. The ferocious waves ebbed into ripples. The clouds lightened, fell apart, and finally, the sun broke through. The voyageurs cheered loudly, picked up their oars, and paddled until they were on the other side of the lake, drawing their canoes out of the water and resuming their portage once more._

_Once they were gone, the Changing Lake shrunk, and using the rest of its power, it crawled across the land, slowly, searching for a place to stop and wait for the next fearful person. It could go anywhere, and hunt anyone. To this day, sometimes its rumble can be heard in the distance as it moves closer and closer. Should you find yourself in the middle of its treacherous waters, remember the voyageurs, what they did. Sit back. Sing loudly. And be_ fearless.

Jongin is so caught up in Chanyeol's story that when he finishes speaking, the silence that follows startles him. The fire crackles. It's dark now, and the deer have retreated far enough into the shadows that they can no longer be seen, or have fled entirely. The entire camp seems to hold its breath.

"Well," Baekhyun finally says, "it was good until the cheesy ending."

Jongin is startled into a laugh, and Minseok joins. Baekhyun looks pleased at the response to his quip. "There's no other good way to end it!" Chanyeol defends. "I can't just say the voyageurs went merrily on their way, the end. It's to abrupt."

"Don't worry, Chanyeollie, it was really good," Baekhyun says with a warm smile. Jongin is quick to murmur his own praise, joined in finally by Minseok, who asks questions about the origin of the story and song.

Chanyeol's smile is radiant.

* * *

_Power is not brute force and money; power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul. It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you. Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth._  
Winona Laduke, White Earth Ojibwe

* * *

Without a phone or a wristwatch, Jongin has no means of telling time. Out in the wilderness, the concept of time stops mattering as much. There are no appointments to make or meet. They eat when they're hungry, fall asleep when they're tired. At first, the lack of routine makes Jongin uneasy, but then, he relishes it. They only travel a few miles a day, and very occasionally none at all, which means Jongin can stop and take pictures at his leisure, and there's no rush to pack up camp in the mornings.

Humans need time. They need schedules and markers and gauges. But what is time to a bird that spends its entire day focused on hunting enough food to feed its hatchlings? What is time to the tree that has weathered the elements long enough that it stands meters above the tallest animals, or to the hiker that empties his mind of everything save for the pounding of his feet and the labor of his breath?

Minseok tells them one morning that it's the first of July, and Jongin doesn't know if his surprise stems from a feeling that time is moving by faster than he expected, or from the reminder that time exists at all, a concept with exact numerical values.

July brings rain, and it brings _a lot_ of it. In the mornings or the late afternoons, the skies lighten and the sun pries open the clouds for a reprieve, but otherwise it's dark and gloomy if not dumping an almost comical amount of water from the sky. Jongin keeps his camera in its case and wraps the case in a disposable poncho.

Unlike Seoul's summer rain, this rain is cold. Without the rain, it's at least twenty-five degrees Celsius, but the rain leaves his skin prickled and his teeth chattering. Baekhyun and Chanyeol take turns explaining the affects of wind and mountainous regions and the Great Lakes and global warming, while Minseok offers more helpful tips on how to stay warm in extreme conditions and where and where not to take shelter from storms, but regardless, the wet and cold combined make Jongin uncomfortable and irritable. His ire is exacerbated by the amount of time they have to spend in the tent together; he likes his companions, but being kept in a small, enclosed space with them after days of spreading out makes him antsy.

He tries to keep his irritation to a minimum. Instead of lashing out, he retreats into himself, answering tersely and with as few words as possible. He doesn't play Baekhyun's card games or try answering Chanyeol's riddles.

One clear morning promises a break in the streak of storms, so they set off eagerly, as Minseok warns that the stretch of trail between this campsite and the next has more miles than their normal quota. It's best to do this section as fast as they can while the weather is favorable.

So of course the sky suddenly darkens with angry, gray clouds within the first hour of their walk, and by the second, it's a veritable thunderstorm. Thunder rages and roars while the rain smacks the ground like thousands of small fists. The mud clings to their boots when they lift their feet, but the rocks they have to climb slow them down even more; the mud cakes in between the valleys in the bottom of their boots, and slicks over the textured flats of them, making the rocks perilous to cross at their normal pace, tricky and slippery. They have to slow down and take each step carefully. Minseok reminds them that if they slip, they should cover their heads instead of throwing out their hands to catch their falls in order to reduce the chance of serious injuries like broken wrists.

There's no lightening, which means it's safe to press on, though, according to Minseok. Their journey is slow and stressful, and Jongin can't make himself get used to the thunder as it bellows every two or three seconds.

Of course, _of course,_ the storm abides right before they arrive at their next site. Chanyeol and Minseok set up the tent while Baekhyun begins fishing out the cooking kit and Jongin hunts for the driest firewood he can find. The air remains cold. Jongin suspects it has something to do with his hair being damp and water having trickled down the back of his neck and continuing down his spine. His ears hurt from how cold they are.

Chanyeol manages to get a fire going. Jongin stays out long enough to eat dinner and dry himself off with the heat of the fire, but doesn't linger, excusing himself from conversation to crawl into the tent alone. He takes off his flannel and bunches it under his head when he wiggles into his sleeping bag. If he's going to be cold with or without the flannel, he might as well get a pillow out of it.

The others leave him alone, and he calms down with the sound of their voices carrying from the campfire ring—Minseok's soft, Baekhyun's warm, and Chanyeol's low timbre more comforting than the warmest of blankets, all over the lulling crackle of the campfire.

He's still cold, and tired, and a bit damp, but he's not so grumpy anymore. He curls up in a ball, conserving as much of his own body heat as he can. It will get warmer once the other three join him, because the tent will retain their collective body heat, but until then, he's on his own. Maybe he shouldn't have chosen the side of the tent to put down his sleeping bag again, where it's coldest. The center of the tent might have been a wiser location to lie down.

Then, the low thud of footsteps drawing nearer, followed by the tent flap unzipping. "Jongin?"

Jongin cranes his neck to see Chanyeol peering into the tent. "Yeah?"

Chanyeol leaves his boots outside of the tent before joining him inside, zipping the flap back up behind him. He has his own sleeping bag and pad tucked under his arm, but he unrolls both and scoots them right next to Jongin's own. As Chanyeol sits cross-legged, Jongin turns away and faces the tent wall.

"Are you okay?"

Ah. Just because he hadn't been snapping at anyone today wouldn't mean that his bad mood went unnoticed. He swallows, his shoulders tensing up as he moves his knees closer to his chest. "I'm fine," he says. Chanyeol waits, so Jongin elaborates, "I just don't handle the cold well." He feels childish for saying it, even if his tone is more defensive than whiny.

But Chanyeol doesn't make fun of him for it, and, honestly, Jongin knows he shouldn't have expected him to. Chanyeol is a good man. A kind man. "Yeah, it gets pretty bad up here even during the summer. I don't blame you." A pause. "Um, are you. Are you still cold?"

"Yeah," Jongin admits. "It'll get better when you guys all settle in for the night. Body heat, you know?"

"Yeah. I'm actually turning in now, so." As Chanyeol says this, he wiggles into his sleeping bag.

Is Chanyeol actually tired, or does he feel bad that Jongin is in a bad mood?

When Chanyeol settles beside him, there's a long silence that maybe isn't as awkward as Jongin feels like it is. He might be reading into things too much. But then Chanyeol says, "Hey, this might sound weird, but if you're still cold, I can, uh. I mean, my body runs warm. If you want, I can scoot close or something."

"Okay?" Jongin doesn't really understand what Chanyeol means. He's already close; a four-person tent doesn't leave a lot of elbow room when they have to fit four people in it.

"It's not weird unless you make it weird," Chanyeol says, voice loud in the quiet of the tent, and then he scoots over so that he's completely pressed up against Jongin from chest to knee, spooning him.

Oh. So that's what Chanyeol means.

Jongin goes tense for a moment, and he thinks Chanyeol might, too, but he can't tell, too focused on the roar of blood in his ears, the hammering of his heart against his chest.

But while startling and unnerving, the hug is also warm, and it feels like the sort of hug Sehun would pull him into at the end of a hard day, pretending to be exasperated as though he's not as clingy as Jongin. Or Taemin, teasing Jongin enough to cheer him up without being genuinely mean as he lets Jongin burrow his head into his shoulder. Yeah, it feels a lot like that.

Except Sehun's and Taemin's hugs don't make Jongin's heart race like this.

(Jongin should be asleep by the time Baekhyun and Minseok come in, and Baekhyun snickers and quietly sings, "Two men lying in a small tent no feet apart 'cause they're really gay!"

"Oh my god, Baekhyun, shut up," Minseok hisses, but there's mirth in his voice.

Jongin hopes it's dark enough that the red on his ears don't betray him. The only reason he doesn't pull away is because he's pretending to be sleeping.)

* * *

_To follow a path great distances, to open oneself to the world and a multitude of unexpected experiences, to voluntarily face the wrath of nature unprotected, was difficult to understand._  
Ben Montgomery

* * *

They make it to Two Harbors, a little town that's the only notable settlement for miles after going north of Duluth and features a handful of mom-and-pop restaurants and a tall, picturesque lighthouse. Minseok gets them a motel for the night so they can resupply at the general store, take showers, and sleep in a real bed again.

The first thing Jongin realizes as they step into their room is how _bad_ they smell. He hadn't noticed it on trail—had completely forgotten about being self-conscious of his body odor, to be honest—because between campfire smoke, mud, and plants, he really can't smell anything else. But with all of that gone, he definitely becomes aware of how long they've gone without bathing.

"Woah," Baekhyun says. "That sure does smell a certain way."

"As the oldest," Minseok starts, "I—"

"That's stupid, you can't always win with age," Chanyeol protests.

"Fine. _As the one who objectively sweats the most,"_ Minseok amends, "I call dibs on the shower first."

"Alright, that's fair," Chanyeol says.

"Alone," Minseok adds when Baekhyun opens his mouth, cutting him to the chase. Baekhyun just snickers.

When it's Jongin's turn to shower, he washes his hair body with the cheap motel shampoo and soap, rinses it all off, and then washes himself again. He scrubs himself down until the water swirling down the drain is clear instead of tinted brown. Instead of dressing back in their clothes after getting clean, they pull on bath robes and wash their clothes in the tub, tinting the water brown with dirt and grime. They hang up their clothes to dry on the railing outside. 

They can't go anywhere dressed in their robes, though, which has them sequestered in their room until their clothes are done drying. Jongin lies back on one of the two queen-sized beds and promptly falls asleep, the allure of an actual bed too strong to resist.

Their clothes are still damp when he wakes up. Although it's not raining today, the sky is still covered with clouds, and it hinders the speed at which their clothes dry. Chanyeol and Minseok already have their clothes back on, and Jongin and Baekhyun, who had also fallen asleep, pull theirs on as well so they can go to lunch at one of the mom-and-pop restaurants. The inside is decked out in cabin-themed decor, and it smells salty and thick with seasoning. Their server welcomes them with a large smile, and while it looks genuine, Jongin remembers that American servers get their tips by being overly ingratiating, so he can't be entirely sure.

"What's the most Minnesotan food here?" Jongin asks after they've been seated and handed menus. "I should probably get the whole experience if I'm going to write about it."

"Hot dish," says Chanyeol.

Baekhyun waves his hand dismissively. "Nah, hot dish is American in general, but every country has their war-era 'We only have this stuff but we have to use it so let's throw it all together and hope it works out' meal."

Chanyeol nods. "Then, uh. Lefse or lutefisk, I guess, if you want to go true to the average white person origins? But I don't know if they have those here. And lutefisk is kinda gross."

"Get the chicken and wild rice soup," Minseok suggests, and because Baekhyun and Chanyeol give enthusiastic agreements, Jongin does, along with a sweet pastry with cranberries in it. He takes a picture of his meal before he tucks in.

Regardless of what it tastes like, Jongin is ecstatic about eating food cooked in a kitchen and not heated over a fire, and it's been a good while since he's eaten meat. The excessive amount of salt in American food can't stop him from enjoying it.

"So what's the verdict?" Minseok asks. "On the food, I mean."

Jongin hums. "Wild rice is good. Cranberries taste . . . different." His tone is reminiscent of Chanyeol and Minseok's when they dislike or don't understand something and wish to express that diplomatically. It's only been a couple of weeks, but he's already taking on his companions' language quirks.

"'Different?'" Baekhyun laughs. "Oh, neutral words used as insults. You're turning into a Midwesterner already. I approve."

"They're not bad!" Jongin says, even if, under the mild sweetness of the actual bread, they kind of are. After the sweetness fades, it leaves behind a thin layer of acidity on Jongin's tongue. "They're just different from anything I've ever tasted. I can't tell if I like them or not."

Their conversation turns towards different words and phrases endemic to the Midwest. Chanyeol has a crumb from his cornbread at the edge of his mouth, and because Jongin's camera is still sitting on the table next to him, he raises it and takes a picture. Chanyeol looks at him curiously, but Jongin doesn't have an explanation, so he just gapes at Chanyeol before stuffing his mouth with a piece of chicken. When he glances back a few seconds later, Chanyeol has a small smile on his face.

As they step outside, Minseok says, "I'm going to head over to the store and restock on food. You guys can go back to the motel or go explore the town or something."

"We should head to Split Rock," Chanyeol says. "Jongin looked like he wanted to take pictures. He was basically vibrating when he saw it."

Jongin flushes, both flattered and embarrassed at Chanyeol's attention, but his protests of "It's not necessary, we don't have to," are quelled when Baekhyun wholeheartedly agrees to the suggestion. Minseok waves them off with a promise to see them soon.

The clouds soften the natural light to the best level Jongin could possibly ask for, especially for taking pictures of a lighthouse. He can't get a full picture of the lighthouse without going onto a helicopter or a boat, but Chanyeol promises there's an overlook on the trail that they'll pass tomorrow that has a good view for picture-taking. Regardless, he gets some good shots of the old bricks up close, of the warm brown of the clay juxtaposed with the blue of Lake Superior behind it. Baekhyun talks about the history of the lighthouse while Chanyeol fills in here and there; how it was built in response to the 1905 Mataafa Storm, which claimed 29 ships in the area; how when it was made, there were no roads up here, and all the building materials had to be shipped in by boat; how it became such a popular tourist spot that Highway 61 was built to bring traffic up from Duluth by land instead of water.

Jongin can't tell that whole story without words, but he can show the age and strength of the structure by taking pictures of the summit from water-level, weathered but strong. He can show the importance of it by waiting for a particularly corrugated water surface before he snaps the picture. The way the waves crash against the cliff will look something fierce when he goes over the shots later.

The lighthouse is on state park property, and the actual lighthouse grounds, gated by the visitor center, closes at four, and it's surreal and maybe a little stressful, being reminded that time, in the modernized world, can be measured with metric units. Not yet ready to return to the hotel, they pick their way down the steep path cut into the cliff-side down to the shore. Baekhyun and Chanyeol look for agates while Jongin lies back down and enjoys the cool breeze that sweeps across the lake, dispelling the humidity that had thickened the air as the afternoon dragged on.

When they get back to the motel, Minseok is already there, the food for the next stretch of trail spread out across both of the beds and all four bags opened between them. It will be a lot of work repacking everything now that they're back to a maximized inventory, but the trade off can be smelled the moment they walk in the door: two large pizzas and a family-sized serving of bread sticks.

Later, even though the bed feels so good underneath him, Jongin can't fall asleep. He's already gotten so accustomed to the sounds of streams, wind, and animals that the stillness of the hotel room is jarring. He lies awake and stares into the darkness, his ears ringing with how quiet it is. He wishes the clouds that have sulked across the sky all day would at least give him rain, white noise, to drown out the silence.

Then he does hear something different: the rustling of bed sheets. It's louder than the shifting of bodies in sleep as they seek out a more comfortable position. A shadow rises in front of the blinds, and his height immediately gives his identity away.

Chanyeol stands up, and Jongin watches in confusion as he quietly pulls on his shoes and creeps out of the room through the door, drawing it closed behind him with the quietest of clicks. Jongin debates for a moment, but then he slides out of bed, too, careful not to disturb Minseok. He puts on his shoes and his flannel, and then follows Chanyeol out into the night.

Chanyeol has his elbows planted on the railing they had used to dry their clothes. He twists his head at the sound of the door opening, and Jongin feels silly for a moment, but then Chanyeol's smile dispels any hesitance. "Can't sleep?" Chanyeol says, voice soft.

Jongin nods and joins Chanyeol at the railing. "It's too quiet," he agrees.

"I usually sleep with a fan," Chanyeol says. "Camping means background noise, too. It helps me sleep"

"If you don't like silence, it's no wonder that you're friends with Baekhyun," Jongin says before he can stop himself. There's a moment where he feels sick with worry that he's overstepped his bounds, but then Chanyeol stifles a laugh into his elbow, and Jongin's tenuous comfort edges back into place.

"The silence isn't always bad. I like how loud Baekhyun is, but quiet people are good, too."

There's something there in between the lines, in between the fleecy tone of Chanyeol's voice and his even softer gaze, but Jongin files it away to scrutinize later.

After a few moments, Chanyeol asks, "Would you like to go on a walk with me?" And there's nothing to do but agree.

The wind has dispersed the blanket of clouds enough that Jongin can see the black sheet of night behind it. Jongin breathes a sigh of amazement. "The stars are so bright. I've never seen them so bright."

"Just wait until we get farther up north," Chanyeol says. "There's like, no light pollution at all. You can sometimes see the zodiacal light. The stars are so bright there that behind the stars, you can see the Milky Way. Sometimes you can't even pick out constellations because of how many stars you can see."

"That honestly sounds life-changing," Jongin says. A part of him doubts that something like that could ever be seen unless he were to go to somewhere completely devoid of human civilization, but a bigger part of him trusts Chanyeol, wants to trust Chanyeol.

"It is. You're going to love it."

Unhurried and alone, they wander back down to the shore. They don't talk about their destination, but they have an implicit awareness that that's their ultimate endpoint. The waves hitting the shore provide the kind of white noise that Jongin had been craving. He and Chanyeol sit down to look up at the sky, and the longer Jongin looks, the more stars he can see, faint pinpricks of light emerging from the darkness like butterflies slowly breaking out of their cocoons. Chanyeol is close enough that their shoulders sometimes brush, and Jongin is so at peace here that it doesn't even make him flinch.

By the time Chanyeol speaks again, the waves have numbed Jongin's senses the way Jongin's skin tingles if he rubs his fingers against one spot for too long. "Why did you become a photojournalist?" A moment later, Chanyeol adds, "You don't have to answer that. I just want to get to know you better?"

Jongin finally looks away from the sky, the spell broken. "Why?" He doesn't mean to sound defensive; he's genuinely curious, but the word is already spoken, and he can't take it back.

Chanyeol doesn't look chastised though. Instead, he replies, "Because I like you."

Jongin waits for the punchline, but when none is forthcoming, he's immensely grateful to the night for shrouding his blush, sharp enough that he can feel the heat radiating from his face. "Um." He takes a moment to gather himself. Chanyeol, with his genuineness and attentiveness, makes Jongin feel off-balance for some reason. He means to start off with his love for capturing stories with photography, but what ends up coming out is, "I wanted to be a dancer."

"Oh?"

And, well, Jongin can't retract his words now, so he has to push on. "I took ballet classes throughout my entire childhood, and in high school, I added contemporary and lyrical. I was good enough to dance competitively. My studio even asked me to teach some of the younger classes. I liked . . . telling stories, sharing emotions and thoughts, with my body."

He wonders when, if ever, the dull ache in his chest whenever he talks about this will go away. Chanyeol remains quiet, waiting for Jongin to continue.

"I was scouted by a company straight out of high school. I was one of the best. I worked so hard. Too hard. I shouldn't have practiced so much. I stepped wrong, landed wrong. All it took was one wrong move, and everything was gone."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Chanyeol says. His hand lifts off of his knee as if moving to squeeze Jongin's, but then he seems to have second thoughts, because it settles back down on his thigh. Jongin sort of wishes he would've gone through with it.

"It's fine. I'm mostly over it." That's a lie, but there's no reason to unload his baggage onto anyone else. Dance was, is, his first love, and first loves are hard to get over. "I sort of fell into photography. I was good at it. And photojournalism is more stable of a career than just photography. You're more likely to get permanent jobs instead of just doing freelance."

"I'm glad you found something else that you love," Chanyeol says, and yeah, maybe photojournalism wasn't his plan, not his first choice, but it's a different way of telling stories, sharing feelings, and Jongin is mostly happy.

"I went to school for environmental education," Chanyeol says. "I really like kids, and I like nature, so I always knew that's what I wanted to do. But there's not a lot of places that hire for environmental education, and even fewer that pay well. I ended up getting a job at an environmental learning center in Montana. I don't like being so far away from my family, but I don't have a lot of options right now."

"Do you want to do that for the rest of your life?" Jongin asks. "Teach kids?"

"I have a dream of opening up my own school for environmental education," Chanyeol says, smiling like he can't stop himself from doing it. "That won't be for a while, if at all. But I like to think that maybe one day, I can."

Jongin doesn't know what to say to that, so he smiles back. His smile is truncated by a sudden yawn that he tries to hide with a hand.

"I think that means it's time to go back to bed, huh?" Chanyeol asks, and yeah, Jongin thinks that he's tired enough to sleep through the silence, now.

Chanyeol stands up and offers a hand to help Jongin up, too. His eyes are bright, his smile is soft, his hand is warm around Jongin's, and Jongin realizes with a sinking feeling that he's very, very attracted to Chanyeol.

* * *

_Psithurism: (noun) the rustling whispers of the trees in a windy, autumn day, or the melodic swooshes from the leaves on the ground_

* * *

The terrain gets rockier after Two Harbors. Jongin hadn't realized how smooth the trail had been leading up to the little town, even if it had been made more difficult by the weather.

"We only have one real mountain in Minnesota," Chanyeol tells him when the topic comes around. "I think it has to be over, like, two thousand feet to be considered a mountain? And we only have Eagle Mountain."

Baekhyun twists his head to look back at Jongin, his droopy eyes just barely visible over his shoulder. His grin is sharp. "Jonginnie, you better not be getting tired! The closer we get to Baptism, the harder the terrain is to travel."

Jongin almost trips over a root protruding from the trail. " _Jonginnie?_ " he repeats incredulously. 

"Isn't it cute?" Baekhyun asks. "I'm Baek, or Bark, because, you know, auto-correct. Chanyeol is Yeollie, or Chanyeollie. Minseok is jerkface—"

"Do you know how many ways I could maim someone with a hunting knife?"

" _Captain._ Minseok is Captain. And you can be Jonginnie!" But then Baekhyun looks over his shoulder again, his face more serious. "That's okay, right?"

"Y-yeah," Jongin says, more startled by the familiarity than uncomfortable with it. "That's fine."

"Then Jonginnie it is!"

Nicknames aside, the cliffs are difficult to navigate at first, but after a few days, become almost fun. Jongin becomes attuned to the rock and earth beneath his feet until he knows exactly how wide his gait can be with the grip on his boots still keeping him stable. He gets better at estimating where to put his weight when he has to walk through mud. When they get to their next camp, Jongin unpacks feeling satisfied with himself.

Raspberries come into maturity at the beginning of July, and Jongin discovers a love for the tiny fruits. They're soft and tart and sweet, and they don't dry out his mouth like juneberries, even if they leave his fingers stained red.

To his pleasure, they see more beavers, and they remain mildly otherworldly to Jongin's city boy mentality. They also see other animals, too, and even if they aren't as unfamiliar, they're just as exciting. Chipmunks and squirrels, the "mini-bears of the forest," as Minseok calls them, daringly dart through their campsites, waiting for food to drop, and when they shout at the rodents, they scamper back a few meters only to wait for a chance to strike again.

Deer are more common than Jongin would have expected from the stereotypically skittish prey animals. He hasn't seen any stags yet, but does and their fawns make an appearance almost every other day, either crossing their path during their hike or curiously watching them sit around their campfire. With their long legs and large, dark eyes, they're beautiful creatures that Jongin takes pictures of more often than probably necessary. They stand still for him, the most obedient models, fawns staring at him head-on in undisguised interest while their mothers watch over them from the corner of their eyes.

Sometimes they hear animals instead of see them. Minseok, Chanyeol, and Baekhyun identify the owners of bird cries until Jongin knows that _zee, zee, zo-zo zee_ is the call of a black-throated green warbler, and that the pretty, thin whistle that sounds like _oh, sweet Canada Canada_ belongs to a white-throated sparrow. The high-pitched drone of dog-day cicadas is constant enough that Jongin notices the silences in between their songs more often than the sound itself.

There are other sounds that Jongin doesn't need the others to identify for him, though.

They sit around the campfire after the light has completely vanished, leaving behind a generous smattering of stars across the night sky. The trend over the past few days has turned to word games, and while Jongin figures out the double-consonant rule of "yellow glass room" without any trouble, Minseok's new "Granny likes coffee but she doesn't like tea—what else does Granny like?" makes him want to rip out his hair in frustration. At least Baekhyun and Chanyeol, native English speakers and well-versed in word games, are just as stumped.

Tonight there's a chill in the air, and the wind seems to pry the trees apart to buffet the back of Jongin's neck. He draws his shoulders up and burrows as far as he can into his flannel. 

From beside him, Chanyeol glances over. "Cold again?" There's a lilt to his voice, amusement at Jongin's expense.

"It's not that bad," Jongin says. And it's not, really. Jongin's becoming more resistant to the cold at night, even if he's never truly expecting it. He's grateful, though, when Chanyeol slides over anyways, pressing their sides together to share his body heat.

Over the sounds of wind blowing leaves, firewood crackling, and Baekhyun trying to annoy a surprisingly patient Minseok into giving another hint, there comes a long, low howl. It echoes through the forest like a ripple through still water, and Baekhyun and Minseok abruptly cease their bickering. The firewood pops once and then goes silent. Even the wind seems to hold its breath.

Jongin opens his mouth to maybe ask what, but closes it again as the howl renews. Another howl rises up next to it, and then another, and it's a whole pack joining in song.

It's not a pretty melody, as far as music goes. Each howl gets its own note, and together, it's dissonant. But its beauty comes from the novelty of it. This is the sound of nature in its rawest form, otherworldly and vibrant and breath-taking. Jongin's heart thrums wildly in his chest like the pounding of a dozen sets of paws on hard, dry earth.

Warmth across his shoulders. Chanyeol draws him closer, and Jongin leans his head against Chanyeol, listening to the song of wolves and feeling more wild than he ever has in his life.

* * *

_'Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!'_  
Bram Stoker, _Dracula_

* * *

They're following the trail to their next campsite in Gooseberry Falls State Park when a dark, lumbering shadow crosses their path. As the first person in their line, Jongin gets to set their pace today, so he stops short, momentarily forgetting that there are other people behind him.

Minseok runs into his backpack, and the force almost knocks him off-balance. "Jongin," Minseok starts, his voice somewhere between confused and chastising, but he cuts himself off when he sees what caused Jongin to halt. "Oh."

The bear isn't even half the size that Jongin had been expecting. Even with how close it is, it doesn't seem to notice them, or if it does, it ignores them completely. It's sniffing in the grass boarding the trail, shoving its snout into the ground while its weight sways clumsily from paw to paw.

And it's . . . very cute. In fact, it might be as cute as the bears in Jongin's collection back at home, with its round body and somewhat stubby legs, and the little round ears on top of its fuzzy little head.

Minseok shouts "Hey!" and scoops down to pick up a rock. The bear doesn't even glance up. Ignoring them, then, not oblivious to them.

"Wait," Jongin says, his fingers slipping on his camera case in his rush to open it. "Please, just a few pictures? Please?"

Minseok frowns. "Jongin—"

"Please," Jongin says, and Minseok is silent.

"He's making those puppy eyes, isn't he," Baekhyun says with a drawn-out sigh, and Jongin doesn't know what he's talking about, but Chanyeol groans and Baekhyun follows up with a bright laugh.

Minseok stares at him for a long moment. Then, "Fine. Make it quick."

Jongin could howl in victory, but he doesn't want to risk scaring off the bear, however unlikely it is to happen, with how uninterested it is in them. The bear goes on disregarding his entire existence. He gets as close as he dares, kneels down, and takes his photos. Unlike other animals like deer, the bear doesn't sit stand still, always redistributing its weight between its paws, turning its body to find the best angle to dig at whatever it is on the ground that has arrested its attention.

When Minseok's presence behind him becomes too imposing to ignore, Jongin puts his camera away. Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Minseok all shout at the bear, throwing rocks at its feet and menacingly stomping towards it. The bear lumbers back into the forest at a pace that suggests it doesn't actually fear them.

They crowd around the area to search for what had the bear so interested. Baekhyun's long fingers come up with a shiny bottle cap, his fingernails dislodging the stubborn teeth from the ground more efficiently than the bear's clumsy but determined claws. Minseok looks irritated already, and that ire is starting to cloud Chanyeol's and Baekhyun's expressions, too. Jongin doesn't want a repeat of the fowl mood that had struck when they were at the campsite with the beer bottles and pizza boxes, so he says the first thing that comes to mind, which is, "The way that the bear moves, how it—waddles?" He's not sure if that's the right word in English, but no one corrects him or looks confused, so he presses on. "It reminds me of the toddler classes I used to teach in my dance classes. They moved like baby bears."

That garners their interest. "You taught dance?" Baekhyun asks.

"Ah, yeah. I used to be a dancer." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he realizes the mistake he's made, because Baekhyun insists that he dances for them. Chanyeol encourages him as well, and Minseok doesn't agree or disagree, but there's a smile on his face.

Jongin protests, but at the end of the day, when their fire is starting to provide more light than the last of the sun's rays, he stands up and moves to the center of the open space away from the tent. He holds his breath, moves his focus into his own skin, and feels his body the way he hasn't in years, feels every centimeter from the top of his head to the tip of his fingers, the arch of his feet. Like riding a bike, the intrinsic awareness of each cog of his body comes back slowly at first, and then all at once, and he moves.

The choreography returns to him easier than he'd expected. He's not in mint condition, but the impressed looks and compliments he gets from his audience of three make him blush with shy confidence. Even Baekhyun's wolf-whistle doesn't fluster him enough to detract from his pride.

Besides, it's hard to feel anything but powerful when Chanyeol looks at him like he's some amazing creature that he's seeing for the first time.

* * *

_Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain._  
Jack Kerouac

* * *

They just finish packing up camp for the morning when the sky, which had been filled with dark, gravid clouds for the past two days, unleashes its watery wrath in the form of a storm unlike any they've seen yet on trail. It comes out of nowhere, a warm humidity ripping open to make way for a torrential rainfall, cold and incisive.

"Are you kidding me?" Chanyeol grumbles. They had quite literally finished packing a few moments ago, Jongin's hands dropping from buckling his backpack into place.

"Minseok?" Baekhyun asks. Jongin has to blink the rain trickling down his brow to even be able to see Baekhyun's concerned expression. 

Minseok shakes his head. "We can't travel in this." He has to shout to make his voice heard over sound of water slapping the ground. "Who has the tent? Set it back up. We're going to wait this out."

Chanyeol and Baekhyun get the tent up faster than they ever have before. They carefully slide off their shoes and set them as close to the tent as they can get, hoping the rainfly will be enough to keep the inside of them dry, even as the wind begins to redirect the rain at a slant.

There's no avoiding bringing water into the tent, with how soaked their clothes and hair are already. They sit cross-legged in a circle, cramped as they scoot as far away from the cold walls of the tent as possible. Even Chanyeol, always warm, shivers. Because they're already drenched, finding warmth inside of the tent proves difficult.

"It's good to know that you two can actually get a tent up at a decent pace when you're not screwing around," Minseok says wryly.

"What was that?" Baekhyun asks, cupping a hand over his ear. "Did you say, 'Thanks for getting the tent up so fast, Baekhyun and Chanyeol?' Because if so, you're welcome, Minseok!"

Minseok laughs, and Jongin smiles, too. "Thanks, you guys," he says through chattering teeth. To his right, Chanyeol slides his body a bit closer to Jongin's, offering his side as warmth, and Jongin is too cold and wet and tired to feel self-conscious about the way he immediately plasters himself against Chanyeol's arm.

They bring up a word game again, but Jongin can't bring himself to care about what type of liquids Granny does or doesn't like. He rests his head on Chanyeol's shoulder and closes his eyes, comforted by the low timbre of Chanyeol's voice and the white noise of the rain.

He doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until he wakes up again. His head rests on something thicker and softer than a shoulder, and instead of folded underneath him, his legs are pulled up against his chest. Without opening his eyes, he assesses the position, deducing that he must be using Chanyeol's thigh as a pillow, now, which is comfortable for his head, but lying on the ground without a sleeping pad is going to be hell on his back later.

But for now, there's a big, gentle hand combing through his hair, slow and steady and hypnotizing, so Jongin sighs and lets himself fall back asleep. As he doses off, he hears Baekhyun's "He really is like a puppy," followed by Chanyeol's soft "Shush, don't wake him up."

The rain lasts longer than Jongin's nap does, and when he wakes up a second time, the others have abandoned their word game. Minseok and Baekhyun are working on bracelets while Chanyeol scribbles in a notebook, his back twisted in a way that must be uncomfortable to avoid disturbing Jongin in his lap while he writes.

Jongin slowly sits up. The rain still patters on against the tent, but it's quieter now. Jongin doesn't feel miserably cold. His clothes are still a little damp, but it's no longer a texture that feels gross on him, and he mentally thanks Minseok for making him buy clothes specifically geared towards hiking. Chanyeol's cotton shirt is still wet enough that it sticks to his stomach and chest, but he doesn't look all that bothered about it.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Minseok says with a small smile. "Good nap?"

"You looked comfortable," Baekhyun says. His face is blank, but his eyes twinkle with mischief.

Jongin nods, not really knowing whose statement he's agreeing with. He rubs the sleep out of his eye with a closed fist. Chanyeol makes a weird noise in the back of his throat, and when Jongin gives him an inquisitive look, his face is red. "It's fine," he mumbles, and Jongin doesn't know what exactly is fine but decides not to ask. Baekhyun seems to get it, whatever it is, because he snickers as he returns his attention to his bracelet.

Jongin points at the bag of embroidery thread. "Can I . . . ?"

"Help yourself," says Minseok.

"Hey," Chanyeol says as Jongin picks through the bag. "Would you maybe make a bracelet for me?"

"Um. Sure? Minseok and Baekhyun are both better than me, though. Their bracelets would look nicer."

Chanyeol opens his mouth to reply, but Baekhyun beats him there. "But he wants one from _you,_ Jonginnie," he says, dragging out the last syllable of his name like it's something both amusing and scandalous. Baekhyun is implying something here. Jongin can't quite puzzle out what it is just yet, but there's definitely something.

"I already have, like, five from Baekhyun," Chanyeol says. It doesn't answer why a bracelet from Minseok isn't acceptable.

Jongin nods anyways. A part of him is pleased that Chanyeol wants a bracelet specifically from him. "What colors do you want?"

"I like black the most. You can pick the other colors."

"Oh," Jongin says without thinking, "black is my favorite color, too."

"It must be fate," Baekhyun says.

"Baekhyun, your favorite color is literally black, too," Chanyeol snaps. Jongin doesn't get Chanyeol's defensiveness or Baekhyun's hectoring laugh, so he just follows Minseok's example and ignores them.

He picks out a skein of black thread, and then after holding up a few other colors and imagining them woven together, decides on a gray and a dark blue to couple it with. The colors will look good wrapped around Chanyeol's wrist. Something dull, so it doesn't distract from the web of veins under his skin.

Jongin hopes that if he keeps his head down, no one will notice the blush on his cheeks. He really shouldn't think about the veins on Chanyeol's hands and forearms. He forces himself to focus on nothing but making the bracelet until he's not forcing himself anymore, his brain lulled into a blank slate by the repetitive motions. The sound of lead scratching against paper once again whispers under the rain as Chanyeol resumes writing.

Chanyeol is ecstatic when Jongin shows him the finished result. "Oh, Jongin, I love this." He holds out his wrist expectantly, and those veins are . . . . It takes Jongin a beat too long to realize that Chanyeol wants him to tie the bracelet on for him. Jongin swallows and does so, looping the bracelet around the proffered joint. It takes Jongin a few times to get the tail of the strings through the loop, and he blames it on the size of the loop, not his shaking hands.

Jongin had been right. It looks great on his wrist, like it was meant to be there.

"I love it," Chanyeol announces again, springing his arm out so Minseok and Baekhyun can admire it, too.

"It's just a bracelet," Jongin protests weakly, but he would be lying if he were to say that he isn't pleased.

"Yeah, but it's a bracelet you made. It's one of the best gifts I've ever received."

Baekhyun's amusement bursts outward in the form of a laugh. "Is it really a gift if you _told_ him make it for you?"

Chanyeol launches into a story accusing Baekhyun of doing something similar in recent years, which quickly devolves into good-natured bickering, and Jongin is all smiles and laughter.

* * *

_I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority._  
E.B. White

* * *

"Holy hell," Baekhyun says when they unclip their packs and let gravity lug them off their backs. Instead of immediately going to set up camp, they all slump down on the pair of benches framing the fire pit. Baekhyun leans most of his weight on Minseok next to him. Jongin plants his elbows on his knees and droops down in a slouch, while Chanyeol planks across the bench on his back, his head pressing right up against the outside of Jongin's thigh. Exhaustion grips them. Jongin's legs feel heavy.

The stretch of trail they just hiked had been enervating for all of them except for maybe Minseok, who is used to longer stretches of trail, but it still left even him covered in a thick layer of sweat. Minseok pulls off his Patagonia hat and waves it in his face, trying to stir the air around him enough to cool him down. Baekhyun whines and wiggles closer into Minseok's space until their faces are close enough that Baekhyun can feel the air against his skin, too.

"Let's at least get clean water started," Minseok says.

The water purifier kit and pot are in Jongin's pack, which means he has to lean over to drag his bag closer. The sweat on his fingers make grappling with the metal zipper difficult, but after a brief struggle, he gets it open. He stares at the kit and the pot, realizing that he needs to get up to go to the pond and fill the pot. It won't get up and fill itself.

He stares dejectedly for a few more moments before forcing his shaky legs to stand up. He takes the pot and totters across the campsite, picking his way through the trees and their roots down a narrow, rocky path to the shore.

When the trees suddenly give way to the pond, Jongin stops, and the breath is knocked right out of him.

The pond is much bigger than any he has seen so far, probably helped by the lack of cattails and other riparian plants save for a few white lilies popping up between lily pads. The sun reflects off of the rippling surface of the water like thousands of diamonds, bright enough to almost be blinding. It's beautiful, and it reminds Jongin of the stories and scenes he wants to capture while he's on trail, even if it means extreme physical activity to find those stories. Feeling renewed, Jongin dips his pot into the water and brings it back to camp.

The others are still sagging on the benches when he brings the water back. Chanyeol is still lying flat on his back, but his chest is rising and falling slower now. Jongin takes a moment to admire the laxness on his face, the way exhaustion has relaxed his muscles, before he adds the first of the chemicals into the pot to purify the water.

"Jongin," Baekhyun says, "you're the best."

Jongin smiles down at the blue drops of purifying solution swirl into the water before fading. "I have to pull my weight too, don't I? You can all relax for a bit, I've got this."

"The best," Baekhyun reiterates, and Chanyeol turns his head to regard him with what he thinks might be fondness. It makes him shy, and he flees to find tinder and wood for their fire while he waits for the water to finish purifying.

+++

It's when they're playing happy spoon—an awful "game" in which they pass around unwanted leftovers in one bowl and everyone takes turns eating one spoonful until the leftovers are gone—that a low cry cuts through the air. It sounds like a mourning tune, something lonely and haunting as it echoes through the forest. At the same time, it's one of the most beautiful songs Jongin has ever heard.

"Oh," Minseok breathes, and Baekhyun sits up a little straighter across from Jongin.

Next to Jongin, Chanyeol also pauses, the bowl of leftover rice clutched tightly in his big hands. Jongin presses his thigh closer to Chanyeol's to get his attention. "What is that?" He speaks softly, worried that if he's too loud, he'll scare away whatever it is making this beautiful noise.

"A loon," Chanyeol answers. He pauses as the sound rolls through the forest again. "They're common up here, but it never really stops being magical."

Magical, yes, that's a good word for it. Otherworldly, but lonely and grieving, too, in its rise and fall.

"Loons have a few calls," Baekhyun says. "This one is to find each other, or to let others know where it's at."

"I hope it finds who it's looking for," Jongin says quietly.

Chanyeol looks over him, and the firelight dances in his eyes, enigmatic but warm. He leans over to press his arm against Jongin's. Jongin doesn't pull away.

They listen to the loon until its call changes to a tremolo, shorter, no longer crying. Its croons are still haunting, but filled with what Jongin can't label as anything but affection. A few moments later, another one joins it at the same pitch.

Chanyeol nudges Jongin with a smile. "Relieved?"

"Yeah," Jongin breathes. In the flickering fire light, Chanyeol's smile grows wider.

* * *

_It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way._  
Cheryl Strayed

* * *

Jongin comes back from the latrine just as he hears Baekhyun say, "What? You're not gonna be able to see any this early."

"See what?" Jongin asks as he sits down on the bench next to Minseok.

"The Perseids," Minseok says, scooting over to make more room for Jongin. "A meteor shower, but it doesn't peak until August."

"You can see one or two, if you're lucky," Chanyeol argues.

"See one or two shooting stars?" Jongin asks.

"Yeah!" Chanyeol says emphatically. "Baekhyun and Minseok are just being negative. I'm going to stay out until I see at least one. Do you want to stay up with me?"

Baekhyun snorts. "Smooth."

"Is that really okay?" Jongin asks.

"Yeah! Why wouldn't it be? It'll be fun."

Baekhyun starts, "What it'll _be_ is—" but is stopped by a sharp look from Minseok. Jongin isn't sure what's going on here, but whatever it is, it pinkens Chanyeol's cheeks and ears.

After it gets well and truly dark, and Minseok and Baekhyun leave them in favor of lying down in the tent, they douse the fire. Chanyeol offers to unzip his sleeping bag and spread it out on the hard ground, and Jongin unzips his own to cover them both to keep them warm. It means they have to press in close to fit, touching from shoulder to feet, and it takes all of Jongin's self-control to not snuggle closer.

He likes Chanyeol so, so much.

It gets cold enough at night that there aren't a lot of crickets or other noise-making animals left, so the loudest sound is that of their breathing, steady and soft. If Jongin listens closely, and if he focuses hard, there's the sound of the camp's bordering stream trickling.

Chanyeol points out the main constellations in the sky, using his finger to trace the points of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, scribbling Cassiopeia's W shape, like he's identifying small holes in a sheet of black velvet.

"That star is Deneb," Chanyeol says, pointing at the brightest star in the sky. His voice is as quiet as it was when they were listening to the loons, but he turns his head to murmur his explanations into Jongin's ear, his breath warm. "It's 200,000 times brighter than the sun. And there, that's Vega, which is in the constellation Lyra, and that other bright one across from it is Altair, in the constellation Aquila. In east Asian mythology, Altair and Vega were two lovers that were separated by the river of the Milky Way."

It reminds Jongin of the loon that called out so sadly for the other half of its pair.

"Ah," Chanyeol says with a smile, "but that's not the end of the story, Jongin, don't look so sad. Their love burns brighter than any other star in the sky, doesn't it? Maybe not right now, but they do on the seventh day of the seventh month. On that day they cry so hard, despondent by their separation, that magpies come to bridge the river, so they can spend one night together a year. They love each other so much that they're thankful for even that."

Jongin turns away from the soft earnestness in Chanyeol's expression to look back up at Altair and Vega, twinkling gently at each other. Behind them, Jongin can see the smudge of the Milky Way, and there's something poetic in the way that not even galaxies can keep the two lovers apart.

"Jongin!"

Jongin jumps and stares bug-eyed at Chanyeol, who gazes at the sky for a few more moments. "Did you see that?" he asks, enthusiastic.

"No?"

Chanyeol makes a noise at the back of his throat and points to a spot on the eastern side of the sky. "It was a shooting star!"

"It was?!"

"Jongin," Chanyeol groans, and then laughs. "It's okay. I didn't have a wish prepared, so we'll just have to keep an eye out for the next one."

The next shooting star comes seconds after Chanyeol is done speaking, a bright streak across the sky that's gone so fast that Jongin doubts he even saw it. Chanyeol makes another noise, whiny and thrilled. "Jongin!"

"I saw, I saw!" Jongin says as he's swept up in the excitement, and it leaves him warm and happy. He's never seen a shooting star before, and even if it had been short-lived, he still feels as though the universe is sharing some illicit secret with him.

"What did you wish for?"

Jongin pauses, realizing that he hadn't wished for anything. "I . . . didn't."

Chanyeol sighs. "What am I going to do with you? That's the most important part of looking for shooting stars." But his exasperation is tinted with indubitable fondness, and it brings warmth to Jongin's face and chest. They regard each other for a long few moments, unhurried and expecting nothing. "Do you have anything to wish for?"

Jongin considers this. He can wish that his article does well, when it's released. He can wish that the weather is kinder on them for the duration of this trip. Neither of those things, nor anything else he can think of, feel like wishes that are worthy enough to be used on something as special, as ephemeral, as a shooting star.

"No," Jongin says, "not yet." But he smiles at Chanyeol to let him know that it doesn't bother him.

Besides, with Chanyeol lying next to him, excited and maybe just as bright as Deneb, he finds that right now, he's happy enough that he can't think of any wish that he would want to make to change the present.

* * *

_Not just beautiful, though–the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me._  
Haruki Murakami

* * *

Beaver Bay is the smallest tourist trap town Jongin has ever visited. The attractions are all on Highway 61 and face out towards Lake Superior. There are at least four antique and novelty stores, an ice cream shop, and, most interestingly, a shop specifically for agates. Jongin can't imagine what the excitement about a store that sells pretty rocks would be, but Baekhyun insists that they stop by after a well-deserved rest.

They stay at a restaurant-hotel combo that's named after the highway. It's decorated with the cabin-style art and furniture that all "authentic" establishments on the North Shore seem to have, with lots of depictions of conifers, moose, bears, wolves, loons, and lakes. Jongin is once again hit with the smell of their _adventure_ when they walk into the facility, and it makes him self-conscious and apologetic towards the staff. They take turns showering and washing their clothes, with Minseok going first again to give himself time to make the trek to the general store to resupply their food.

As a late lunch, they get ice cream from the parlor next to the hotel. It's the first cold sweet he's eaten in weeks, and consuming it after his toil makes it all the sweeter. They perambulate through two souvenir shops without buying anything at all, and then Baekhyun leads them farther along to the agate store.

The agate store not only sells agates, it turns out, but also features a gallery of notable precious stones like Native American jewelry and jade from China. Minseok walks with him through the museum as Chanyeol and Baekhyun peruse the store.

"I don't get it," Jongin says. "Why are agates a big deal up here? They're just pretty rocks."

Minseok shrugs. "Honestly, I don't think I'll ever understand what's up with agates. Like these—" here he points to a sculpture of a tree with leaves made up entirely of amethysts "—are beautiful to me. Agates are pretty, I guess, but I don't have any particular fascination with them. The locals are a bit weird."

"Jongin!"

Jongin flinches, and he's glad he wasn't touching anything when his name was called, or else it might have been smashed into pieces across the floor by now. Those rocks might be hard, but the materials holding them together and the details adorning them sure aren't. Chanyeol comes thudding into the gallery, his mouth stretched into a smile with a ludicrous width. "I got this for you!"

He holds up a necklace. The cord is a simple brown hemp string, featuring a green stone pendant in the shape of a flat donut, and the cord loops through the hollow center to keep it in place.

Jongin takes the necklace from him, rubbing his thumb over the stone. The color reminds him of frosted grass. It's beautiful in a very simple way. "But why?"

Chanyeol lifts his wrist up, and his bracelet comes into view. "Well, you made me this, so I wanted to give you something in return, too."

"But you _asked_ me to make it for you," Jongin protests. Minseok's muffled laughter behind him makes the back of his neck and the tips of his ears burn something furious.

"But you still gave me a gift," Chanyeol insists, and Jongin finally concedes. He gently slides the two knots closer to loosen the cord and hooks it over his head. The pendant is a comforting weight right below where his collar bones meet. Chanyeol's eyes linger there for a long moment. His throat works once, and Jongin instinctively copies the move, his own throat suddenly tight. Chanyeol's eyes flick up, following the movement, before he abruptly turns around.

Minseok looks disgustingly amused, but he doesn't say anything. Jongin is quietly relieved that Baekhyun hadn't been here to witness that exchange, because he would not have allowed Jongin or Chanyeol that dignity.

They dine at the hotel's restaurant. Jongin's fresh fish is delicious, but there's something about it that doesn't feel as satisfying as the low-quality but hard-earned trail food he's become so accustomed to. Maybe it's the fact that he has to work so hard before he gets fed is what makes the food so delicious, when they finally get to unpack each late afternoon.

But the bed that night can't be beaten by any sleeping bag spread out across the hard forest floor. Jongin falls asleep within moments of curling up under the blanket.

* * *

_A crude meal, no doubt, but the best of all sauces is hunger._  
Edward Abbey

* * *

After Beaver Bay, the trail begins to follow and cross over Baptism River, a mercurial water feature that rampages in some spots and shallowly swirls through others. The trail becomes harder to navigate, plaguing their trek with constant elevation changes.

And stairs, so many _stairs._ The stairs, Jongin thinks, are in some spots worse than the steep cliffs and hills, because he has no control over the width of his gait. Minnesotans up here must love their stairs, because they come out of nowhere and last for flights upon flights upon flights, truncated shortly by rough patches of trail before appearing again at the next ascent.

One cloudy morning at their campsite, Baekhyun suddenly tugs on Jongin's shoulder and points, drawing Chanyeol and Minseok's attention as well. Jongin follows the invisible line made by his finger out through the campsite, across the still, gray pond, and lands on a pair of canine animals. Long bodies, pointed ears. Bigger than coyotes.

Oh.

They stand tall but unassuming as they gaze across the lake back at the backpackers, and Jongin slowly, slowly, and with shaking hands, takes out his camera. He can't see the exact shade from here, but he imagines the wolves' burning amber eyes, and knows with certainty that his camera will capture their sharp vitality.

Jongin gets a dozen pictures before one of the wolves turn, its tail dragging against the neck of the other. As though it had been beckoned, the second wolf gives them one final look before following the first. They step back into the forest, slow and easy, completely dismissive of the awe they've just inspired.

A silence settles over the camp, all-encompassing, giving them time to process what they had just witnessed.

"I've lived up here for my entire life," Baekhyun finally says, "and I've never seen a wolf in the wild before."

Jongin's eyebrows rise as Chanyeol and Minseok nod. He looks to where the wolves had been just moments ago, imagines them standing there again, and is thankful that, even if only for a handful of minutes, he got to witness something as wild and unbound as the North Shore wolves.

* * *

_The groves were God's first temples._  
William Cullen Bryant

* * *

Tettegouche, a state park north of Beaver Bay, is nothing short of beautiful. They stop at the public "beach," which is really just a cove at the mouth of Baptism River partially sheltered by two cliffs curving together like two lovers dipping to join their foreheads. The beach isn't covered with soft sand, but rather large rocks that are painful to step on. But it's scenic in a different sense, and the water has interesting texture, and liminal spaces like this, between river and open water, are one of Jongin's favorite subjects to photograph. He walks along the edge of the river, snapping pictures of the waterfall by the cliff side, the water parting along the protruding boulders, and the stones sinking under the river's surface.

Chanyeol is the first to take his boots off, tucking his socks inside before wading knee-deep into the water. Baekhyun and Jongin follow suite next. Minseok takes his boots and socks off but opts to watch them step into the water from his dry spot on the rocks.

And that, Jongin discovers, is probably the smarter decision.

Baekhyun yips. "It's cold!" he shouts. Jongin's toes curl into the sandier lake bed, and goosebumps rocket up his body.

"Are you sure about that?" Chanyeol asks, a smirk unfolding on his countenance. "Maybe you should test that out. Maybe it's not as cold as you think." And then he kicks up water at Baekhyun.

Baekhyun screeches. "I'm going to kill you, Chanyeol Park!" He dives towards Chanyeol, arms flailing, murderous intent in his eyes.

Chanyeol's laugh is full-bodied, and he stumbles back, feet caught up by the unexpected viscosity of the water. Baekhyun bends down and cups his hands to fling water back up at Chanyeol, who hollers disgruntledly.

The next thing Jongin knows, Chanyeol is behind him, his hands squeezing Jongin's upper arms and hefting him so that he's facing Baekhyun.

"A human shield?" Baekhyun says. "That's low, Chanyeol."

"Look at his cute face," Chanyeol says, and Jongin replays the word "cute" over and over again in his mind. "You couldn't hurt a face like this."

Baekhyun, his hands already dipping back into the water, pauses. He appraises Jongin, looking him up and down, and the attention makes Jongin want to squirm, but Chanyeol holds him steady.

With solemn voice and face, Baekhyun says, "Sorry, Jonginnie, but there's collateral damage in every war." His hands move, and then Jongin is very, very cold, and very, very wet.

+++

Minseok keeps rolling his eyes at them whenever they complain about being cold. They stand behind Tettegouche's visitor center, and even though his wet hair feels awful and cold where it curls against his skin, Jongin's ears and neck are still hot with the ghost sensation of Chanyeol's hands clutching his arms, and then, after Baekhyun had splashed him, his waist, to better move him around. The manhandling had left Jongin disconcerted, and maybe a little wanting for more.

The visitor's center is at the top of a cliff overlooking the lake. Jongin hadn't quite forgotten how big Lake Superior is, but he had definitely forgotten the feeling of being mesmerized by its sheer size. He has to turn his head all the way to the left or right to see the next curvature of the shore, and the line of the horizon appears to be thousands of meters away.

They pluck juneberries from trees as they resume their hike. The berries are fatter than they were the last time Jongin had tried them, back when Baekhyun had offered them as an apology for tripping him, and purpled with ripeness. To Jongin's surprise and pleasure, they're also sweeter, and they don't leave his mouth as dry after swallowing. They do, however, stain his fingertips magenta.

He watches Chanyeol suck the residue off of his fingers and almost trips flat on his face. He waves off of their concern, but Chanyeol's gaze lingers on him for a long time.

* * *

_Hiking and happiness go hand in hand (or foot in boot)._  
Diane Spicer

* * *

Baekhyun's favorite stretch of trail is the one between the Finland Rec Center and Crosby-Manitou, a state park they'll soon go through, so he sweet talks and whines at Minseok to let them stay at each campsite. Minseok haggles until Baekhyun comprises with staying at one of two campsites at each body of water.

"You're missing out," Baekhyun sighs.

Minseok is unrepentant. "Then come back on your own time," he says, to which Baekhyun responds with a pout.

The first of the Rec Center to Crosby-Manitou campsites is at Egge Lake. It's the first campsite in the last week that doesn't feature awkward roots, rocks, or slopes that make finding a place to set up their tent a matter of science. A huge maple towers in the middle of the space, bordered by birches and conifers.

As they cook dinner that night, Jongin picks up a fallen maple leaf off of the ground and absently starts to rip at it, stripping the flat of the leaf from the main veins.

Baekhyun plops beside him where he sits on the bench. "That's a red maple, you know?"

Jongin turns the leaf over in his hands. The parts that he hasn't shucked off are all green. "It doesn't look red."

Baekhyun's eyes light up, and Jongin fights the smile from his face. He's mildly curious, but he's more interested in the way Baekhyun always gets excited to share his knowledge about the nature of northern Minnesota, and Jongin doesn't mind indulging him.

"The stems have a red tint to them, and, of course, they have a distinct red color in the fall. But that's not how you tell them apart from sugar maples, the other maple tree we have a lot of up here." He picks up another maple leaf, and he uses his pointer finger to trace the top segment of the leaf, where serrated edges come together to make a vaguely triangular shape. "Do you see the triangle here?" He waits for Jongin to nod before continuing. "This part, if it were a sugar maple, would be a square shape, kind of like a sugar cube."

"Having fun learning interesting-but-useless tree facts, Jongin?" Minseok asks.

Jongin smiles. "I like interesting facts," he reassures Baekhyun, "and they might be useful when I'm writing my article."

"You'll like how to tell spruces and firs apart, then," Chanyeol says from behind them. He beckons Jongin to follow him to one of the conifers at the outskirts of their camp. "This is a fir, and you can tell because it has flat needles, so it doesn't hurt if you touch it." He takes a big handful of its leaves and twigs and moves it up and down, as though he's shaking someone's hand. " _Flat, friendly firs_ will greet you. Spruce trees aren't nice like that. Their needles are tipped, so they don't feel good to hold, and each needle has a square cross-section, so you can remember spruces with _sharp, square spruce._ " He lets go of the fir tree. "And pines have needles that grow in bunches, but I don't have any nifty alliterations to help you remember that."

"That's very useful," Minseok shouts out, "if Jongin ever plans on going around making friends with coniferous trees."

"You never know," Chanyeol replies, unbothered. "Maybe Jongin decides he loves the North Shore so much that he wants to go run into the forest and never come back."

"I think I'd miss you guys too much," Jongin says, and he partially means it as a joke, but Chanyeol's wide grin reassures him that the truth of the message was conveyed successfully.

* * *

_Deep down, at the molecular part of life, the trees and we are essentially identical._  
Carl Sagan

* * *

Between Egge Lake and Sonju Lake is a trek that has Jongin falling into a hypnosis of a sort, immersed in walking, and crossing over bridges, and using the thick muscle of this thighs and glutes to heave the weight of himself and his backpack up rocky steps that are just barely able to be climbed without using hands. Except for the occasional warning for a particularly slippery rock or root, they're all quiet.

Jongin does, however, ask for them to take a break when they enter a cedar forest. The trees are tall, taller than the conifers and the birches and the maples, and still, so still. Weathered with age, their trunks are stripped bare of leaves, but their canopies at the very top are thick, making the trail beneath them curiously dark. It's old here. Jongin feels like a trespasser, like he's somewhere he's not meant to be at all. But he takes pictures, capturing the ancient hunger and silent, dormant power.

There's an old logging cabin in the middle of the forest, collapsed and rotting and partially buried with old leaves. Jongin takes a picture of its dilapidated, broken frame as it bows to the mighty cedar trees lording over it. There's a story here, and Jongin's fingers itch to seize it and make it his own. As he takes pictures, he imagines bits and pieces of a choreography that conveys the hierarchy of the forest.

The Sonju Lake campsite is a cove sheltered by birches and firs (and Jongin knows they're fir trees because he jokingly went around and shook their needling branches like hands), and while somewhat rocky, it's open, prompting each of them to go exploring. It borders another small cedar forest, which slopes downwards until it gets to the lake itself. The drop-off is free of plants and faces the northwest, and Jongin vibrates with the excitement of knowing the lake will give him no less than a dazzling sunset tonight.

They can't mess around for too long, however; once their bodies realize their toil is done for the day, their stomachs remind them that they haven't eaten since breakfast. Baekhyun leads them south out of the campsite, following part of the path circumnavigating the lake until they reach a wooden bridge. The bridge leads to a small island in the center of the lake, dense with trees and textured with steep rocks, but once they all fit into a relatively flat, empty space, it provides a scenic lunch. An old, crooked sign hangs from a nail embedded in a tree: "LILLY'S ISLAND" is printed on it in that robin egg blue font characteristic of the Superior Hiking Trail.

Jongin notices a notebook resting on a small wooden ledge mounted into a nearby tree. "What's that?"

Chanyeol follows his gaze. "Is that a trail registry?" Jongin watches on in curiosity as Chanyeol heaves himself up and grabs it, flipping it open while sitting back down.

Baekhyun, sitting next to Chanyeol, leans over far enough to squish his cheek against Chanyeol's shoulder as he investigates. "Looks like it," he announces.

"What's a trail registry?"

"It's like a public logbook," Minseok answers. "People who pass through here can write messages here, usually about how their trip has been, what sort of things to keep an eye out for, things that they were feeling at the time. Some people leave phone numbers or blog addresses."

Baekhyun and Chanyeol go through the notebook, jumping from page to page at random, reading out loud a few entries that sound interesting or funny or outright weird. Then they stop, going quiet for a few moments, before Baekhyun lets out a quiet but thick, "Oh."

Jongin tilts his head, intrigued at what has stopped them so suddenly. Chanyeol smiles, soft and warm, and for a second, Jongin has the wild thought that he wants that smile directed at him. Chanyeol passes the trail registry over. It's opened to a page with only three words on it followed by a date earlier in July.

_She said yes._

"Wow." Jongin blinks rapidly before passing the notebook over to Minseok, whose face splits into a grin.

"Can you imagine proposing here?" Minseok asks. "It'd be perfect."

Jongin imagines loving a place and a person so much as to share such an important milestone here. Someone had felt, still feels that love. The closest Jongin has ever come to a love like that was what he felt, still feels, for dance. And he doesn't even have that now.

But he does have a committed family, and he has supportive friends. He has a job that, while not his dream, he enjoys. He has—

Wide grin, dark kind eyes, deep voice—

Jongin blinks and turns away from Chanyeol, his ears burning, and wonders what's wrong with him.

Minseok fishes out a pencil from the bag he had brought with them. "Does anyone want to leave a message?" Minseok scribbles something down, followed by Chanyeol. Baekhyun takes a bit longer and the strokes of the pencil are slower, drawn out. He must be drawing something. When he's finished, he passes the notebook over to Jongin.

_Travelling in a group of 4 from Duluth up to 270 D.O. I think this will be one of my favorite places, and hope it's one of yours, too. MK._

_To hiking the SHT with friends, both new and old! —CP_

Baekhyun's contribution to the page involves a sketch of a conifer and a dog, both surprisingly of high quality, or at least better than anything Jongin could draw. Along the outline of the tree, Baekhyun has left, in tiny, neat handwriting, _Bark was here!_

"I don't know what to write," Jongin admits.

"Just write anything," Baekhyun suggests. Chanyeol nods.

"But don't feel pressured," Minseok adds.

The truth is that Jongin doesn't know what sort of thing he could write that feels profound enough to leave behind. The others' entries weren't exactly life-changing, not even slightly, but still, Jongin feels like anything he'd have to say would be inadequate in comparison to his experience on the SHT so far. So he smiles and shrugs, and passes the registry back to Chanyeol for him to put back in its place on the ledge.

On the way back, they happen to cross paths with some day hikers with two very rowdy puppies, one a labrador and the other a spaniel of some sort. The puppies, unleashed, immediately bound up to Jongin and his group, and without thinking to ask if he can pet them, Jongin drops immediately, letting them lick his face and scratching behind their ears the way his puppies, left behind with Taemin, always like.

"I wish we could have brought puppies," Jongin says as they wave the day hikers goodbye.

"We did," Baekhyun says, and when Jongin puckers his brows, he cackles and explains, "We brought you!"

Minseok smacks the back of his head, but he's also grinning. "Do you like being scratched behind the ears, too?" he teases. A big hand—it definitely belongs to Chanyeol—cups the back of Jongin's head, and rubs small circles into the spot behind his ear with strong fingertips. Jongin wants to be embarrassed by the way his body suddenly relaxes, becoming almost limp, but it feels so good. Chanyeol's warm chuckle huffs into his ear, and Baekhyun and Minseok watch on fondly.

They go back to Lilly's Island after dusk, when the night has almost completely settled upon them and the daytime's last vestiges cling onto the sky in the form of a deep purple that dances along the line of black. There are a pair of loons warbling somewhere in the dark. Small yellow lights perambulate in the air, swaying like the yellow lights are almost too heavy for flight. Fireflies.

As they catch and release the bugs, Baekhyun explains bioluminescence. But knowing the science of how fireflies light up only makes them more magical to Jongin, not less. Barely a moment after Baekhyun finishes his lengthy explanation, Minseok says, "When we were kids, my sister and I used to catch fireflies and squish them against our faces so that we glowed."

Baekhyun's eyes widen at the act of sacrilege. "Minseok!" he squawks, and Minseok laughs at him.

Jongin can't immortalize this moment with his camera, but as he watches Chanyeol's smiling face glow in the light of the handful of fireflies he releases, he thinks he won't forget this experience any time soon.

* * *

_Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world._  
John Muir

* * *

Baekhyun's love for this stretch of trail is well-founded, in Jongin's opinion. There are lots of beautiful, exciting places, but Jongin's favorite place so far is the campsite at Blesener Creek. The site is nestled into the band in the bank of the stream, bordered by the stream itself on one side and a tributary forking into it on another. Unlike the sites at Egge and Sonju Lakes, it's hard to fit their tent into a good spot because the ground is fluted with rocks and dips, and the small clearing means they don't have a lot of space to maneuver, but the rugged beauty of the camp more than makes up for it.

One of the benches by the fire pit is falling apart; the post is missing from one side, and some previous backpacker propped it up on a tree that has fallen across the tributary. It's wobbly, but holds Jongin's weight when he sits on it.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun disappear soon after camp is set up, leaving Minseok to read his book and Jongin to take pictures and record thoughts and observations in his notebook. The notebook is filling up much faster than he had anticipated. There's so much to see on trail, so much to write about, so much to take pictures of. Jongin wants to remember every new plant, every interesting geographical feature, every piece of information his new friends share with him, even if he's never going to need the random facts for any practical daily task.

Chanyeol returns over a larger tree bridging the tributary, balancing with confidence that comes with years of trekking back country terrain. "We found a huge patch of raspberries by the bridge downstream," he says. "You should come check it out."

Eyeing Chanyeol from over the top of his book, Minseok says, "No thanks. I deserve a break from your noisiness."

"You're missing out," Chanyeol says, shrugging. "Jongin? Are you coming?"

Jongin stands up, slinging his camera around his neck. Chanyeol grins at him, holds out his hand, and tugs him forward.

They take the long way around instead of the way Chanyeol had come along the edge of the stream and hopping over its rocks, following the actual path instead. "Don't want to risk getting your camera wet," he says, and Jongin smiles at his thoughtfulness. They find the bridge that Chanyeol had mentioned, the one that connects one side of the river to the other. It looks new, built with concrete and stone instead of the unstable bridges made of ropes and wood planks that they've crossed so far on their journey. The path is wide here, prying open the canopy to reveal a swath of sky, blue like Lake Superior on a sunny day, and clouds float through it like dozens of lazy sailboats.

Chanyeol leads Jongin across the bridge, and on the other side, he immediately turns and starts to follow the thin strip of path along the wall. When Jongin rounds the corner after him, he realizes that the entire side of the natural levee dipping down into the stream is covered in raspberry bushes. He can see all of the bright red berries nestled against the green of their leaves, fat and juicy and practically begging Jongin to come eat them.

With his shoes and socks spread out next to him, Baekhyun lounges at the edge of the river, his feet submerged in the water. Red juice stains his lips, the remnants of a small feast. He cracks an eye open at Jongin. "Welcome to our little piece of heaven."

Jongin plucks a berry from the closest bush, pops it into his mouth, and decides that "heaven" is a good word for it, with how sweet and bright its flavor is. And there's so many of them that Jongin doesn't mind taking his fill. Baekhyun starts to fill the silence with information about stream ecology and riparian growth and some other really specific things that Jongin doesn't understand but likes listening to anyways, and Jongin nods and asks questions while he gluts himself on raspberries. Chanyeol flits about, eating raspberries of his own, hopping across the stones rising up out of the water like small walls that the stream froths up against before tumbling around. Jongin makes sure his camera's strap is secure around his neck before taking pictures of the stream, and then of everything else at the scene, too, from the little berries to the wide bridge. He gets the best shot when a ladybug lands on Baekhyun's face, making him cut himself off and his face twist into surprise, something neither positive or negative but rather shocked enough to not be able to form an opinion yet.

His favorite shot, though, is taken when Chanyeol grins wide at him, face scrunching up a little under the force of it, and berry residue has his lips stained red, too. As he looks into the viewfinder, Jongin grins back.

(Later: "You have a bit of raspberry at the corner of your mouth."

Chanyeol's finger swipes the opposite side. "Better?"

"No, on the other side—"

Chanyeol misses again, so Jongin reaches out to rub away the red mark himself. Chanyeol's mouth falls open, and Jongin's stomach lurches at the soft skin of his lips under his thumb.

Baekhyun chokes on his laughter, and Jongin remembers he's not the lead role in a romance show, and he stumbles back before he can do anything stupid, like replace his thumb with his own lips.)

* * *

_So what is wild? What is wilderness? What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?_  
Louise Erdrich, Turtle Mountain Ojibwe

* * *

Chanyeol and Jongin unroll their sleeping bags under the stars for the night again. It's a good idea at the time, forgoing their sleeping pads, staying up to trace constellations and talk in quiet voices under the sound of Blesener Creek's soft babbling. But on the next day, they cross into George Crosby Manitou State Park, and their sleepiness and the ache in their backs increase the challenge of their hike.

And the trail _does_ become more difficult. Jongin had thought that the stretch between the Finland Rec Center and Crosby Manitou was hard, but Crosby Manitou is rugged, and wild, and full of cliffs that they have to climb and descend at impressive slopes. But they push on, and it makes Jongin feel a little less human, a little more animal, the way he knows where to put his feet and the way his lungs don't hurt from the exertion anymore, like he's meant to be in this wilderness. It fills him with both confidence and serenity, a combination of feelings that he found in the wolves the other night.

The trail cuts through a system of small canyons and through fir, cedar, spruce, and northern hardwood forests. Minseok explains the history of the long-extinct volcanic activity and how it formed the topography, depositing easily-eroded sediments, and how later glaciers loosened those sediments and changed the landscape farther. Now, the erosion of the land is controlled by water, by precipitation and snow-melt and the many creeks that playfully nip at the path for a time before streaking off again. It means there are a lot of pictures for Jongin to take, stories upon stories folded into the crevasses of rocks, the bends of trees, the next slant of the path.

The first campsite they stay at has, of all things, pitcher plants. They sprout up out of the ground instead of hanging from vines like Jongin had thought they did, and their pitchers are a deep reddish-purple in color. They're also much smaller than Jongin had expected. According to Baekhyun, they eat bugs instead of rodents and birds. It would be more disappointing if it isn't Jongin's first time seeing pitcher plants, or even carnivorous plants at all. Maybe his readers haven't seen them either. Maybe he can show them. He takes pictures of the plants and the rest of the camp.

As he's jotting down notes about what he's learned and seen today, a curious sound floats through the canopy, a high-pitched mixture of a sigh and a squeak.

Without missing a beat, Baekhyun mimics the sound. Chanyeol instantly follows, and his falsetto voice sounds even sillier than Baekhyun's. The lack of hesitation is reminiscent of how he's heard teens finish each others' references to memes and pop culture. Jongin scrunches his brows, confused when they both laugh at the responding sound that resembles a huffy whine.

"It's a yellow-bellied sapsucker," Minseok explains with a roll of his eyes. "A woodpecker."

"Doesn't it sound cute, Jongin?" Chanyeol asks. "It sounds like it's pouting."

"How is that cute?" Minseok asks, but Jongin kind of agrees. It's a bit cute, the way any bird could sound that indignant.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol mimic the whines, and Minseok looks closer and closer to strangling them. Jongin shouldn't join it, but it looks fun, and before he knows it, the sound is rising up the back of his throat, too.

"Yeah, that's it!" Baekhyun says while Chanyeol bursts into laughter.

After a great deal of cajoling, they get Minseok to join, too, and his voice, naturally softest and highest-pitched out of all of them, sounds the cutest. He blushes something furious while Baekhyun teases him, shoving his head away with a small hand over Baekhyun's smiling face.

They laugh and laugh and laugh until Jongin is practically choking on his giggles. He has a wild moment where he thinks maybe these friendships aren't just something that he can have on trail. Maybe this runs deeper than a temporary thing, because the only other people he can laugh this freely with are his few friends back in South Korea. 

And that thought hurts, because it _is_ just temporary. He's here for the duration of his assignment, and then he'll go home. The trail will be nothing more than a memory—

No. He'll have his article. He'll have his words and his pictures to remember this experience by, just like his audience will, and that will have to be enough for him.

He'll make it enough for him. He tucks his insecurities away to focus on the rest of their stay at the park.

There are over 5,000 acres on Crosby Manitou's property, and while the Superior Hiking Trail goes straight through it, there are lots of side trails that start and end in the park, many with overlooks that provide the best pictures. There are over twenty campsites, many along the Manitou river and a few on Benson Lake, so they spend a few days at the park, staying at a different campsite each night, and dedicate their days to exploring the trails, the waterfalls, and the cliffs. There are many friendly day hikers that offer to take pictures of the four of them together, and there are a few families and couples that drive to Crosby Manitou to spend just a night or two before packing up again. There's always someone up for letting them (usually Chanyeol and Baekhyun, sometimes Jongin, who is shy around new people, and Minseok, who spends his time doing solo hikes) join in on a game of frisbee or ladder golf.

There's only one completely cloudless night while they're at Crosby Manitou, and Chanyeol and Jongin resume their new tradition of sleeping under the stars. It's closer to the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, so shooting stars can be seen more frequently than the first night. Their bodies are pressed close, practically cuddling, and Jongin wants this too much to pull away. Instead, he tilts his head so his temple rests against Chanyeol's shoulder. He can feel the rumble of Chanyeol's voice through his chest as he speaks.

"It's amazing to think that the trail is never the same for any two trips. We're here, right now, watching the stars from this exact place. Even if someone comes to the same spot tomorrow night, it won't be with the same people, and they won't be thinking the same things. The stars won't be in the exact same places in the sky, and the meteors won't go past at the same times. It will be different. No one is ever going to experience this exact same moment except for you and me, right now."

It sounds like Chanyeol is trying to tell him something, so Jongin plants his elbow down on the ground, using it to anchor him as he raises his torso to slightly lean over Chanyeol.

Chanyeol's eyes flicker down to somewhere below Jongin's eyes. "People don't get to experience this with us," he says, voice thicker than before, "but you'll get to share it with them in your article, and encourage them to have their own experiences here, too."

Chanyeol's throat works, moving his adam's apple up and down, and Jongin feels himself mimic the action. Their eyes meet, and then there's a hand on the back of Jongin's neck, and in the back of his mind he registers the touch belonging to Chanyeol. He can barely focus on it when Chanyeol is looking at him like that, and then their faces are drawing closer, and closer, until there's no space between them at all.

Even if he were to ever put this in his article, he doesn't think he'd ever have words enough to describe the gentle pull of Chanyeol's lips, the shaky breaths that truncate them, soft and unsure and beautiful. The grip on the back of Jongin's neck tightens, coaxes Jongin closer, and he's helpless against it, helpless against this man who was just supposed to have been a companion to his assignment, not the man who has stolen his whole heart.

* * *

_Nature is only wild to those who separate themselves from her._  
Raven Grimassi

* * *

Following Crosby Manitou is another state park named after Temperance River. "Temperance?" Jongin asks, failing to come up with a definition.

There are lots of people here, from tourists taking pictures of the falls to local teenagers ignoring the multiple DNR signs proclaiming that swimming is highly discouraged, "LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST HERE." Minseok keeps looking over at them anxiously, his body tense, like he's ready to jump in at any moment to save one of them if a current catches them. He probably will, if it comes to that. Minseok has told them one too many horror stories about water safety and the lack thereof, and Jongin knows without being told that Minseok is thinking about all of the horrible ways that these kids can be hurt.

Chanyeol comes up beside him and points to the mouth of the river. "The river is one of the only ones up on the North Shore that's strong enough to force out debris that would otherwise block its mouth. The build-up of debris at the mouth is called a 'bar.' 'Temperance' means abstaining from alcohol, so a river that has no bar . . ."

"Some smartass had a sense of humor back then," Baekhyun says with an approving grin.

Even though it involves dodging around multiple bodies, Jongin takes fantastic pictures of Temperance River's angry, frothing waters, and of the scenes splayed out below the many overlooks of Lake Superior, the river, and the old growth forests. The farther up north the get, the more rugged, the more unruly the terrain gets, left free from the settling, the mining, and the logging brought by humans.

The longer they follow the trail, the more Jongin feels like an animal, feels more like the belongs here, and like he's not one of the tourists blocking his path, the ones who take a day trip to the state park and will take pictures with their phones and will drive back to their air-conditioned homes in their sedans and Priuses to watch the weekly evening comedies over their warm, oven-cooked dinners. They'll take showers like they do at least every other night, and they'll change into pajamas and throw the clothes they only wore for less than twelve hours into the pile of dirty laundry in their rooms, and they'll climb into their comfortable beds and snuggle under their swatch of blankets.

He doesn't think he's better than them, but he feels different.

Junmyeon drives up to meet them that night. He pays to rent out a room for all of them in a nice lodge near the park, brings up a load of food to resupply them (and also sneaks in a few treats that Minseok would never buy for them himself, saying that they're a "waste of space"), and even brings up a brand new pair of socks for Chanyeol, who has worn a big hole in one of his.

"You look leaner than you did when I last saw you," Junmyeon says to Jongin, and he's not sure if that's a compliment or just an observation. He smiles awkwardly. He feels leaner, though, like his body has adapted, even if only a little bit, to this new lifestyle.

It feels good.

* * *

_Hiking is not escapism; it's realism. The people who choose to spend time outdoors are not running away from anything; we are returning to where we belong._  
Jennifer Pharr Davis

* * *

The thimbleberries come into season. They look like raspberries, but fatter, squatter. They taste just as good, though, maybe even a little better, and as they walk, Jongin finds himself leaning over to pluck them off of the bushes that border the trail.

Chanyeol and Jongin don't talk about it. The kiss. The way they cuddled close together after it, the way Jongin's heart _sang._ But Chanyeol still sits close to him by the campfire, and Chanyeol still looks at him so, so softly. Jongin wants to ask about it, but he's not sure what questions to use. _What are we?_

Jongin's pretty sure he's in love, and he doesn't know what to do about it. They're only going to be on trail for a few more weeks, and then he'll head back to Korea, and that will be that. What's the point in asking what they are if they can't "be" anything?

It's a clear, warm night, and there's been a few early meteors from the Perseids, so Baekhyun and Minseok stay outside of the tent with Jongin and Chanyeol as they let the fire burn out. Baekhyun and Chanyeol take turns making ridiculous wishes while Minseok adds affectionately reproachful ones like, "I wish the two of you get laryngitis so I don't have to hear your stupidity anymore." Chanyeol is especially giggly tonight, alternating between slapping and grabbing his own leg and slapping and grabbing Jongin's when he laughs.

At the same moment as a pause in their laughter, a long, low sound bounces through the valleys and trees, a howl that rises into a single, unwavering note. It's the second time in his life that Jongin hears a wolf's howl, and, as it's joined by the disharmonious notes of the other pack members, he thinks it's just as magnificent and moving as it was the first time he heard it.

They listen to the pack song for half of a minute before Chanyeol asks, "Should we say hi?"

"What?" Jongin asks.

Chanyeol throws his head back and howls, loud, revved up by a few barks before stretching into the singular note. Jongin flinches at the sudden noise, but Baekhyun doesn't hesitate to bring up his own voice into a howl high above Chanyeol's. It's their own song, a wild cry that answers that of the wolf pack.

"You're ridiculous," Minseok says, his mouth stretched in a smile that displays his gums.

"Come on, Minseok, Jongin!" Chanyeol says, reaching out to grab Jongin's wrist. "You're pack, too. You have to join in!"

And that, that's such a strange way of saying it, _you're pack._ But it makes sense, it does. He's been out in the wilderness with these three men for the past few weeks, learning about how he fits in the world, learning to love nature and the magic it bears. They've laughed and they've toiled and they've looked after each other. They've fallen into their own rhythm, one that won't be the same if any of them leaves. What better word is there for this unit than "pack?"

Jongin throws his head back and howls.

Baekhyun's teeth are sharp when he laughs. Chanyeol's eyes sparkle, his gaze tethered to Jongin like he can't look away. And Minseok, his face a shade of red discernible even in the warm hues of the fire, joins, too. The four voices twist and fold into each other into one unbreakable chord.

The wolves stop their howling for a few moments before starting again, and then there are two pack songs sidling up against each other and rising into the night sky, floating between the stars, between the meteors. Jongin feels the sound fill his body and trickle down his veins. Chanyeol slides his hand down from Jongin's wrist to thread their fingers together.

Maybe Chanyeol and Jongin haven't talked about what happened between them, but no matter what, they're pack now, so Jongin howls with him.

* * *

_These are the voices of my brothers, darling; I love the company of wolves._  
Angela Carter

* * *

Grand Marais breaks the North Shore norm of decorating everything in the style of log cabin kitsch. There's still plenty of it, but it's tempered by a folk art vibe that manifests in art galleries, coffee shops, and even an amphitheater. There might be more indie things nestled in the city, but these are what Jongin notices on their way to the inn they'll be staying at. He'll have time to fully explore the city later; Minseok plans for them to stay here for a few days because their stop coincides with an annual folk art festival. Every other business has ads for it, different activities they're hosting or sponsoring, or special sales offered during the festival. There's lots of both; the festival goes on from Friday morning to Sunday night. The town buzzes with excitement and tourists.

They check in at the hotel and begin the familiar process of stripping, showering, and washing their clothes. To his surprise (and maybe even his dismay), Jongin doesn't find the smell of their bodies that repulsive anymore. It smells like adventure. It smells like accomplishment.

(He doesn't, however, feel sad about scrubbing the smell off of him.)

They spend a few days exploring the city, the lighthouses and the gift shops and restaurants. The city is designed grid-style, where between each intersection is a strip of stores and businesses on both sides of the road. There's a buzz of excitement; small chat with some of the locals reveals that the festival is the biggest event of the summer.

On the opening day of the festival, the crowds are out in full force. The sun drapes a gentle heat across Jongin's skin, and he tilts his face up into it as he lets Chanyeol pull him through the throng of people, using his height and size to clear a path for them. A part of Jongin wishes he was with Baekhyun and Minseok, who are scouring the strip of food stands, because being alone with Chanyeol is proving to be dangerous for his heart. But Chanyeol looks so happy, bright, when he asks, "Will you come watch the first band with me?" that there's no chance of Jongin saying no. The skin of Chanyeol's palm is rough, and it feels nice when his grip around Jongin's wrist is so gentle.

They stay out all day, watching folk band after folk band perform. Although he hasn't listened to much folk music, he decides that he likes it; even if they're in the same genre, each band has their own style, and each song tells a unique story. Chanyeol and Jongin dip out of the crowd in between sets to meet Minseok and Baekhyun on the grassy hill that overlooks the stage and the packed dirt in front of it, where the crowd can gather close to listen and dance. They have a routine: Baekhyun hand-feeds Jongin bits of fried food, Minseok insists they reapply sunscreen, and when it's time for the next group to perform, and Chanyeol leads Jongin back to the packed dirt space in front of stage.

By the end of the day, Chanyeol has sunburn on his ears and the back of his neck, anyways, because his hair, now long enough to do so, has been pulled up into a small ponytail all day, leaving his skin exposed. Minseok berates him for not putting on sunscreen properly.

The festival nightlife brings forth a different energy. More and more hands fill with cans of beer, and the bands play music that's less folk and more country in influence. Rowdiness ensues. The combination of alcohol and energetic music creates the perfect opportunity for dancing under the ropes of fairy lights glowing between every rooftop and light pole.

There are many stories here, and Jongin finds the little strings of them to use as subjects for pictures so he can extrapolate them later with his descriptions. But he doesn't let himself only experience the festival from behind the camera, and he doesn't resist being pulled into the festivities.

Jongin doesn't know how to square dance, but he lets Chanyeol, Minseok, and Baekhyun take turns linking arms with him and swinging him in circles, laughing as he struggles to keep his balance at first. His dance lessons bubble up fast enough, though, and even if this style is more energetic than artistic, he takes to it, throwing himself into the momentum, letting his body move on its own.

The four of them play a round of a game where the object is to toss a ring at a stand of glass bottles. Minseok wins a stuffed animal, but gives it to a child who has been watching them play, and she stutters out a thank-you before skittering off.

And the food. There's fried _everything,_ and if it's not fried, it's covered in cheese. When he'd first come to America, he couldn't stand how salty everything is. Now, though, he'd be lying if he says that he dislikes it. He tries fried pickles, butter balls, pepperoni chips, spaghetti and meatballs on a stick, cauliflower made to taste like chicken wings, and lots of _actual_ chicken, because he hasn't had chicken in weeks. They share all of their food so they can try everything without getting too full to try whatever the next stand offers.

(The only thing he can't be convinced to try is the chocolate-covered bacon, even if Chanyeol and Baekhyun insist that it's actually good.)

That night, he goes to bed with both his stomach and his heart full.

+++

"Hey," Minseok says in between sets, "isn't that Yixing Zhang?"

It's Saturday evening, day two of the festival. Baekhyun and Minseok join Jongin and Chanyeol in front of the stage today, bowing out from time to time and coming back with new novelty foods. Jongin thinks that the festival is simply an excuse to listen to music while gorging themselves on all types of snacks and treats, but he can't say he dislikes it.

Baekhyun swivels his head around eagerly, reminding Jongin of his puppies when they hear a weird sound and can't tell where it's coming from. "Yixing? Like the cute Chinese Yixing that I had a crush on in junior year?"

"Oh," Chanyeol says, "that does look like him."

_"Where?"_

"Not in the crowd," Minseok says. "Up there."

There's a man on stage. Unlike the other performers, he's alone, sitting on a stool and cradling a guitar in his hands. His expression is both a little distant and a little soft, Jongin thinks. Like he's half-asleep, or like he'd just taken a strong dose of cold medicine. But then the man—Yixing, apparently?—smiles, and his face goes soft in a different way. He leans forward to speak into the microphone in front of him. "Hello," he says. "Thank you for coming today. My name is Lay, and I have a few songs to play for you. I hope you'll like them."

"I forgot how cute his accent is," Baekhyun sighs. "Why is he even here? I thought he went back to China after graduation."

"He did," Minseok says. "I'm pretty sure he came back for his master's."

Chanyeol hums in agreement. "Yeah, I heard he was going for forest management, I think?"

"See, I would have known that if he updated his Facebook more than twice a year," Baekhyun grumbles.

All of the songs in Yixing's set are acoustic, and many of them slow, doleful, a contrast from the line-up of upbeat folk groups. Yixing's voice isn't anything to write home about, but it fits well against the gentle melodies of his guitar and the pink and purple sky as the sun sinks lower and lower. One by one, the strands of lights hanging above them come to life, coaxed out by Yixing's performance. Jongin, too, is enthralled.

He jumps when he feels the pair of arms slide around his shoulders, but relaxes when he feels the familiar stature fit behind him. Chanyeol pulls Jongin close, locking his arms around Jongin's chest and propping his chin on Jongin's shoulder. Their faces press together like this, cheek to cheek, and it might be wishful thinking, but Jongin swears he can feel Chanyeol's heart beating against his back, steady and grounding. They stay like that throughout the whole concert while Chanyeol rocks them from side to side to the tempo.

After the performance, after Yixing smiles bashfully at the audience, thanks them for their enthusiastic (if not a little drunk) applause, and leaves the stage, they slink back around the stage themselves, intent on catching up with their old friend. Yixing doesn't notice them at first, crouched over his guitar and fitting it back into its case. Baekhyun calls out to him as they approach, and Yixing's head rises. He squints. "Baekhyun Byun? Is that you? . . . And Minseok, and Chanyeol!" He dimples at them. "It's been a while, hasn't it? What are you doing here?"

"We're hiking the SHT," Chanyeol says. "Minseok planned it so we could stop by for the festival."

"We didn't know you'd be playing," Baekhyun says. "I honestly didn't even know you were back in town. Minseok and Chanyeol say you're back to get your master's?"

They catch up for some time, and the back-and-forth volley of questions and answers goes on until Yixing finally notices Jongin. "Oh! I don't think we've met. I'm Yixing. I went to school with these guys."

"I'm Jongin." He feels shy all of a sudden, with everyone's eyes on him. "I work for a photojournalism magazine. I was assigned to cover the Superior Hiking Trail, and these three are helping me out. I've never been backpacking before."

"Do you like it?"

And, huh. No one has asked Jongin that since he started their trip. _Does_ he like it, or has he just made himself have a good mentality about a situation he has to be in anyways? There's lot of mosquitoes and ticks and wasps. The food gets bland after a while. The hiking itself is exhausting, and worse when he has to do it in rain and mud. At the end of every day, his body is sore, and the thin sleeping bad he keeps underneath him often doesn't help shed off the vestiges of pain. He hasn't been able to talk to his parents, or his sisters, or Taemin or Sehun or Kyungsoo or his _puppies_ for weeks.

And yet.

"Yes," Jongin says, "I think I do." It's an adventure. It's _his_ adventure, maybe the first real one he's ever had, and it's difficult and rewarding, just like dance. There's so much to learn, and he's befriended some of the greatest men he's ever met along the way.

Yixing smiles. "I was never a long-distance backpacker myself, but I always did like canoeing, at least. If you come again, you should take a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters." He glances down at his phone. "Hey, I have to pack up the rest of my stuff and then head over to that coffee shop with the art gallery in it. They have an open mic night for singer-songwriters and slam poets, and I promised I'd play a little bit. Would you like to meet me there?"

* * *

_Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you are climbing it._  
Andy Rooney

* * *

The cafe serves as an art gallery, too. The main room that the front door opens to has the counter, the display case for pastries, and a few tables. To the right, the main room opens up into a second room, more spacious and with higher ceilings with exposed rafters, and filled with more small tables only big enough for couples. The chairs have been moved around, though, and tables pushed together, the occupants gathering close around some tables and leaving others empty. At the front of the room is a small stage, and behind it is a tall, tall window, like glass behind a chancel. The stage has just enough room for an old player piano, and there are spools of music in boxes stacked on top of it. The keys are old, yellowed, chipped, but the wood is clean, the wax relatively new. Jongin is attracted to it the way a moth is to a lamp. It might not have anything relevant to his article, but it's photogenic. He takes pictures of it, and of the rest of the cafe, too.

Minseok orders all of them coffees that come in ceramic mugs instead of disposable cups, and Baekhyun weasels him into buying a piece of key lime pie for the two of them to split, too. They pull chairs around one table adjacent to the stage, cup their coffees in their hands, and wait. Chanyeol lightly taps his foot against Jongin's, and Jongin's stomach twists in a way he can't say he hates.

They don't have to wait long. As the room fills up, they see someone in the cafe's signature apron moving a stool onto the stage. A minute after, Yixing comes in through the front door, holding his guitar case close and apologizing every time he accidentally bumps into people.

Unlike his performance that was a part of the festival's official line-up, Yixing doesn't introduce himself this time. Instead, he smiles at Jongin and the others, and promptly starts plucking at the guitar strings without fanfare, something slow and unassuming, repetitive but pretty; it's an improvised tune. The music settles under the din of the cafe. Patrons speak quieter, and there are pauses in conversation as their attention is stolen away by Yixing's playing.

"Do you remember when you two used to play together?" Baekhyun asks.

Chanyeol hums in agreement. "We only did a few times, but it was really fun. I miss playing. This is the longest I've gone without it."

"You should ask Yixing if you can borrow his guitar and play for a bit," Minseok says. Jongin perks up in interest.

"What? No, I can't do that. Wouldn't it be weird?"

"How?" Minseok asks, giving Chanyeol a judgmental stare over the brim of his mug.

"I don't know. It just . . . does?"

Quietly, Jongin says, "I'd like to hear you play." At this point, the truer request would be _I want to know everything about you._ Getting to see Chanyeol do something that he loves—of course Jongin wants that.

Chanyeol's eyes find his, his mouth parted, as though Jongin should have some reason _not_ to want to hear him play. The scrutiny makes Jongin's ears burn, and his eyes drift down to stare at his coffee like it can hide him.

"Uh, yeah." Chanyeol's voice is thick, so he clears his throat. "I can. I can definitely do, uh, that. If you want."

"You are so fucking whipped, dude," Baekhyun says bluntly, more of a statement than a tease, and Chanyeol doesn't even argue with him, doesn't call out Minseok's laughter, muffled into his drink.

Yixing plays a few more tunes while a handful of people queue up at the side of the stage, the majority of which hold either instruments or notebooks. Then he shuffles offstage, allowing the next person in line to perform what turns out to be a poem.

Baekhyun flags Yixing down with a wave of his hand, and they somehow manage to fit in yet another chair at their table. "Hey," Yixing greets, pulling his guitar case between his legs to try to squeeze in as comfortably as possible.

"That was really good, Yixing," Baekhyun says. "I forgot how good you are at improv."

"Thanks! Remember when Chanyeol and I used to jam back in college?"

"What a great segue," Minseok says. "We were actually just talking about that."

"Oh yeah?"

"Would I be able to play a few songs using your guitar?" Chanyeol asks.

"Sure," Yixing says easily. "It's been too long since I've heard you play."

"Disclaimer, though," Chanyeol says. His leg bounces rapidly up and down next to Jongin under the table, and, without thinking, Jongin reaches out and places his hand on Chanyeol's knee. Chanyeol freezes, and they share a look, but Jongin, even as his ears burn, doesn't let go. "Um." Chanyeol turns his attention back to Yixing. "I don't really do good improv anymore, I mostly just do covers."

"I love your covers," Yixing says without missing a beat. Minseok and Baekhyun immediately throw in their agreements, too. Chanyeol's grin is bashful but pleased.

His hand comes down to his knee to cover Jongin's, and Jongin thinks his heart is going to hammer a hole through his chest with how fast and hard it thumps. Baekhyun is wrong; Chanyeol isn't the whipped one, here.

Chanyeol finishes his coffee and accepts Yixing's guitar with a gentle, reverent touch, and for a second, Jongin is jealous of an instrument. But he reminds himself that he knows how soft Chanyeol's calloused fingers are. He's felt them in his hand, on his jaw.

He still wishes they'll talk about the kiss. He's also still too scared to bring it up himself.

The slam poem gets an enthusiastic round of applause. They wait through a duet of violinists, a trio singing a cappella, a pianist, and another slam poet. Then Chanyeol is dragging the stool back to the forefront of the stage and adjusting the mic stand next to it so he can comfortably lean in while he sits.

Like Yixing, Chanyeol doesn't introduce himself, opting to go straight into his first song. After the first few chords, Minseok lets out a noise of recognition, and Baekhyun chuckles. "He always was a big fan of Ben Howard, wasn't he?"

Jongin doesn't know who that is, but he does know that Chanyeol's fingers are skillful as they wheedle notes into the air. And he's known how nice Chanyeol's voice is, deep and smooth and lulling. But hearing him crooning indie songs is something on another level. It's _enrapturing._ He feels himself leaning forward, a sunflower to Chanyeol's sun, filled with the pride that comes with what Jongin can't describe better than _pack._

The next song Chanyeol plays is one Jongin can recognize as a cover of Hozier, and Chanyeol trades out rhythmic strumming with careful, emotive plucks and tugs. Jongin absently mouths the words, but he's more focused on Chanyeol's performance, on Chanyeol's enticing guitar and his warm voice.

Jongin likes him. Jongin likes him so much.

The last song on Chanyeol's impromptu setlist that catchy, repetitive bop by Calvin Harris and Rihanna. Transcribed from its original electronic melody to the guitar, it keeps its energy, but gains a particular intensity compounded by Chanyeol's ability to switch back and forth between his chest voice and his falsetto. It reminds Jongin of the songs he used to dance to in high school and university, when he was still in dance lessons and then on a competitive team.

Chanyeol's eyes twinkle at Jongin, and Jongin doesn't have a chance at subduing the smile that spreads across his face in return. Chanyeol's own mouth mimics the action, flirting around the edges of the lyrics.

"Is he _serenading you?"_ Baekhyun asks with no small amount of glee. Out of the corner of his eye, Jongin can see that the comment is followed by a yip of pain, Baekhyun lurching away from Minseok. Minseok folds his hands on the table and smiles.

"You're wiggling," Yixing says to Jongin. Jongin realizes that he's right, that he keeps leaning back and forth, his hips squirming, his legs bouncing. "You look like you want to run laps."

"Or like you want to dance," Baekhyun suggests. "Which you should totally do."

"I can't," Jongin says, brows furrowing. "There's too many people."

"Aw, come on," Baekhyun says, his smile becoming a little less sharp and a little more gentle. "He's serenading you. He _is,"_ he insists when Jongin opens his mouth, stopping his protest before it starts. "You can dance for him, in return, if you want to. And you do look like you want to."

But damn, Jongin does. He really, really does. He used to be so confident dancing in front of everyone, but it's been years since he's done that. And in hiking clothes and boots, he's hardly prepared to do any serious choreography.

But Chanyeol's eyes are so bright, and his voice is so persuasive, and the song is right. Jongin rises, and immediately Baekhyun, Minseok, and Yixing break out into applause, with Baekhyun even throwing out a wolf whistle. Chanyeol's lyrics wrap around his smile, and Jongin can feel his mouth stretch in a returning one. Then he spins, lets his expression fall into his performance face, and he rolls his body into the first move of his free-style dance, right there in front of a hundred pairs of eyes in a little cafe in Northern Minnesota. Instead of using pictures, he lets his body tell the story of how he fell in love on the trail with a man more amazing than any other.

This is how July comes to an end. The morning after the festival they set off into August and into the final stretch of the trail.

* * *

_The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature._  
Joseph Campbell

* * *

Yixing buys them all breakfast before they leave. He waves them off with promises to keep in touch this time.

The thick forests north of Grand Marais are interrupted by small meadows, which would be a nicer change in scenery if the sun had been out. Instead, the openings in the canopy allow for fog to settle over the long grasses like a white blanket. Through the fog pop out splashes of color in the form of wildflowers; white clover, fireweed, water hemlock, valerian, bergamot, ox-eye daisy, and yarrow. Here and there are some late-flowering violets that spring up in clusters, or the remains of agrimonies. Orchids, which just finished their brief but beautiful peak season. There's an abundance of hawkweed, which Minseok dislikes for its gaudiness but Jongin loves because of the bright, cheery yellow. Tansy, too, which Baekhyun claims is an invasive species, but Jongin thinks is pretty anyways, in a rugged, modest way.

Chanyeol, like Jongin, likes all flowers they come across. "I like how colorful they are," Chanyeol says. "I could never get sick of the greens and browns that we see everyday, but something about seeing the colorfulness of flowers makes me happy." The fog over the next few days gives Jongin a great backdrop to capture the bright colors.

Between the meadows are vast cedar forests with their tall, imposing trunks, their canopies towering over them like leafy crowns. They still feel old, still feel hungry. But Jongin belongs, now. There's nothing to be afraid of when he's part of this forest just as much as any cedar tree, loon, beaver, or wolf, just as much as any beetle or warbler or gust of wind.

In fact, Jongin gets his own crown, too, one evening. There aren't any particularly bright flowers this time of year around their campsite at Carlson Pond, but there's hemlock, aster, tansy, and goldenrod in spades. While Chanyeol and Baekhyun are off being Chanyeol and Baekhyun in the woods, Minseok pauses Jongin's bracelet-making with a, "I have another craft for you, if you'd like a break from bracelets." He directs Jongin to the patches of flowers. "There aren't many hikers up here, now that we're north of the last 'big' town. We shouldn't have a problem following the one-in-ten rule, and if we take a little more than that, well, we'll just keep that between us. Tragedy of the commons, and all that. Make sure you get their stems, too." Jongin doesn't know what "tragedy of the commons" means, but he obediently goes to harvest flowers.

While he does that, Minseok collects two long leaves of ferns. He finds ones with leaves only as long as the length of his thumb and wraps it around his own head to give himself an estimated length to make it, and then ties the two ends together as tight as his mark to create a ring that will sit loosely on his head.

Minseok shows him how to wind and braid and tie the stems of the flowers as tightly as possible around the length of the fern's stem. They need to go get a few more flowers to thicken the crown, but the fern leaves add a nice layer of filler.

"I didn't show you how to make these before," Minseok says, "because we can't make too many of them without breaking Leave No Trace, and I didn't want the temptation to be there. But now that we're getting close to the end of the trail, I think it's okay to make a set of them. It's a special experience that you should have before you leave." Minseok's eyes are closely trained on Jongin, and Jongin realizes what it is he's trying to say.

Close to the end of the trail. It's already August, now. He doesn't know exactly how many kilometers are between Grand Marais and the end of the trail, but he does remember that this is the final run. No more breaks in small towns. Jongin's days here in Minnesota are numbered.

Jongin's days here with Chanyeol are numbered.

It hits him hard, all of a sudden, how much he likes Chanyeol. How much he—and he can't beat around the bush anymore, can't underplay his feelings. He's in love with Chanyeol. He's in love with the trail, and he's _in love with Chanyeol._ Between all of the animal sightings, and the storytelling, the bracelet-making, between each shooting star, Jongin had fallen in love.

And of course he has. Chanyeol is someone who is impossible _not_ to love, with his warm smiles and loud laughs, his way with words, the gentle, dry grip of his hands, his music, his attentiveness, his eagerness. He's Chanyeol. He's everything.

Jongin swallows hard. His eyes feel heavy with moisture, but this isn't something he can dwell on right now. There's nothing he can do about his feelings, so there's no point in fretting over them. He smiles at Minseok, but even he can tell it's a weak expression with the way his brows tighten together. Minseok gives him a pitying expression and drops the topic.

Minseok's flower crown is neater than Jongin's; he's better at keeping the stems turgid, better at not accidentally cracking the stems and causing them to lose their rigidness. But Jongin likes how his turns out anyways, how the whites and yellows of the flowers look nestled against the green leaves. He carefully places it on his hair. Minseok does the same, replacing his signature Patagonia hat with his new floral crown, and he grins at Jongin. "We're flower kings, now."

"This is a bit . . ." Jongin doesn't know how to finish his sentence. Ridiculous? Feminine? But he likes the feeling. He wonders how Chanyeol would look in a flower crown, if he'll agree to wear one if Jongin makes it for him. Kings of the forest. He feels silly for thinking it, but at the same time, something warm blooms in his chest.

"It's fun, Jongin, don't think too much about it." As though reading his thoughts, Minseok continues, "I'll make one for Baekhyun if you make one for Chanyeol."

Jongin's second flower crown turns out better than his first. He has a feeling that Chanyeol will love the gift no matter what quality of craftsmanship it has, but personally he's proud of the result.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun barrel out of the forest. They aren't shirtless and appear to be no dirtier than usual, but Chanyeol won't meet Minseok's eyes, and Baekhyun looks . . . shifty.

Minseok sighs. "Do I want to know?"

"Nope," Baekhyun says, popping the "p." "I mean, not unless you want a conversation about the birds and the bees—and not the kind that I went to school for. Are those flower crowns?"

Minseok doesn't comment on that first part. "Ready to be kinged?" he asks instead. "Kneel before us and we'll anoint you. With petals."

"This sounds like a very solemn affair," Chanyeol says as they kneel anyways, and Jongin shouldn't fixate on how Chanyeol immediately goes to him, Baekhyun not even veering towards Jongin in the slightest, because there's a tacit understanding that Chanyeol and Jongin will be together. It's strange, looking down at Chanyeol instead of up this close. His eyes are wide, trusting. Jongin feels his breath catch. Exposed but spellbound, he can't look away.

"I, Minseok Kim, King of Aster, declare Baekhyun Byun the King of Hemlock." Contrary to his lofty words, he drops the crown unceremoniously on Baekhyun's head. Baekhyun scrunches up his nose and Minseok flicks it.

As Baekhyun whines and Minseok rights the crown, Jongin still can't look away from Chanyeol. His chest feels tight. Quietly, he mimics Minseok's words. "I, Jongin Kim, King of Tansy, declare Chanyeol Park the King of Goldenrod." He reverently places the crown on Chanyeol's head, and keeps his hands there longer than necessary. Chanyeol's smile waxes slow and sweet, like a flower blooming.

They keep the flower crowns on for the rest of the evening. They go quiet as they watch a moose and her two calves step out of the forest across the pond. No one points them out, but they all notice the family at the same time.

Jongin takes a picture without getting up. It won't be a very good one, but getting up now would be like acknowledging the fact that he's not really part of this forest, would be like admitting that he's nothing but a tourist here. Someone who arrives, visits, and leaves again.

Jongin doesn't want to leave.

When the moose finish their water break and lumber back into the forest, Baekhyun starts talking about how they prefer new-growth to old-growth forests, and how the calves will be leaving her any day before the new mating season starts, and Jongin doesn't want to leave this, either. How is he going to learn more about the natural world if Baekhyun isn't there to be a walking, talking encyclopedia?

How is he going to know which way to go without Minseok explaining how to read maps, how to make good time?

How is he going to go back to life before Chanyeol?

* * *

_If everyone in the world took care of each other the way folks do out on the trail, and if everyone approached each day with as much hope and optimism as hikers do, the world would be a better place._  
Jon Tullis

* * *

The impending end of the trail has Jongin closing off from the others. He goes quiet, and resists Minseok's gentle prodding and Baekhyun's ingratiating to get information out of him. Chanyeol doesn't comment on it, but he gives him worried looks when he thinks Jongin isn't looking, and encouraging smiles when they lock eyes.

His worry means that he's more aware of his own humanity in juxtaposition to the wildness of the trail. He's aware that each step he takes is bringing him closer to their final destination; his toil is no longer an experience in and of itself, something to lose his mind to, but rather a means to an end. Every late-summer flower is now a reminder of the season's end, and he can't appreciate their colorful petals. There are no more thimbleberries or raspberries to be found anywhere, and instead of being mildly disappointed about no longer having snacks on the go, Jongin is made acutely aware of how it's too late for them to grow. They don't have these sort of berries in Korea. He might not be able to taste them again.

Might not ever be able to taste Chanyeol's lips again, and, damn it all, why haven't they talked about the kiss yet? Jongin can't stop thinking about it, now. Should he wait for Chanyeol to say something? Should he say something himself? But what if Chanyeol doesn't want to talk about it? What if Chanyeol remembered that Jongin is leaving and decided that he isn't worth the heartache? Is _Chanyeol_ worth Jongin's heartache?

The trail follows the bends and drops of the mercurial Jackson's Creek to one of their final campsites. The smell of balsam firs cuts through the air, fresh and herbal, and it soothes the edges of Jongin's worry; it doesn't calm him completely, but it helps, even if it's not enough to make him stop chewing on his lip, tugging at the delicate skin there with his teeth before it hurts and he can taste copper. He stops, then, minutes later, starts up again. His other new nervous habit is rubbing the stone on the necklace Chanyeol bought for him back in Beaver Bay, but touching it makes him think about Chanyeol, and then he starts fretting all over again.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun don't flee the campsite to go exploring this time, instead letting Minseok walk them through a new design for a bracelet that Jongin doesn't have the patience to learn right now. He tries writing in his notebook and loses his motivation. He takes his camera and tries to find the little stories braided into the forest around them, but finds nothing that sparks his interest. With a sigh of frustration, Jongin stands up. "I'm going to go walk farther down the trail for a bit," he announces. Baekhyun and Minseok share a look. Chanyeol's eyebrows pucker at Jongin. But they all let him go, and he's grateful for it.

He doesn't go too far off, but he walks slow, focusing on the movement of his gait over ground, the heel-toe, heel-toe action. He focuses on the metallic taste coating his lips, too. Focuses on the calls of the black-throated green warblers overhead, and he can laugh, then, that he knows exactly what bird makes that noise right away, now.

He's learned so much. It hurts to think that he won't be here to learn more, especially when there are thousands of more things to learn and thousands of more adventures to have. But maybe in the near future, he'll look back fondly, without regret. Right now, though . . . .

"Jongin!"

Jongin knows the call of a black-throated green warbler just as well as he knows that voice. Chanyeol catches up, his jog ending with a few panted breaths. "Just, just wanted to make sure you're okay." His eyes zero in, then, on Jongin's mouth. "Your lip is bleeding."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I just . . . bite them when I get nervous."

"I've noticed that," Chanyeol says. "They haven't looked this bad before, though."

Jongin shrugs, trying not to think about Chanyeol noticing his lips.

"We don't have any lip balm with us, but, if you're okay with the taste, balsam sap also works on chapped lips," Chanyeol offers. Without waiting for a response, he takes a few steps off of the path to the nearest balsam fir. He's so attentive. Always the first to offer to do anything for Jongin. He bends around the branches and digs his thumb into one of the blisters, coating the pad of his finger with the resin. "Here." He returns to Jongin, holding up his thumb. "Can I . . . ?"

Jongin nods his consent before he realizes what's going to happen, and he can see the moment Chanyeol realizes it, too, because his face goes slack and he blinks. The way his adam's apple bobs is entrancing. Chanyeol's hand stays suspended by Jongin's face for a few long, long seconds, and his gaze sharpens above Jongin's chin.

Jongin doesn't move. Can't move. His breath hitches.

Chanyeol's thumb lands on the center of Jongin's lower lip. Chanyeol stares at it in wonder, and Jongin's mouth parts slightly under the gentle pressure. Chanyeol drags his finger to the right, then to the left, painting the resin across the worried skin. Distantly, Jongin smells the crispness of the sap, feels the sting on his lip abate instantly. More acutely, though, he's aware of the callouses on the pad of Chanyeol's thumb. How warm it is. How big, but gentle.

"Chanyeol," Jongin whispers, because he has so much he wants to say but can only remember how to say that one word, that name.

"Yeah," Chanyeol whispers, like Jongin had been asking him a question. Maybe he had. Jongin's eyes slide shut as Chanyeol's face dips closer, and his thumb leaves Jongin's mouth to be replaced by a touch of a different kind.

The first thing Jongin thinks is that Chanyeol's lips have to be even softer than the remembers them. The second thing he thinks is that balsam fir sap tastes exactly as it smells: herbal, which is to say its pleasant, calming smell belies its bitter taste. By itself, Jongin can ignore that. But as their lips move together, the sap quickly dries and becomes viscid, making the skin of their mouths cling together in awkward places instead of letting their mouths slide. Jongin can't stop himself from laughing with how weird it feels, with how happy he is despite it, maybe even a little because of it. This balsam-kiss can't be experienced anywhere besides on the trail.

Their grins pull back their lips too much to continue kissing, and the resin makes kissing uncomfortable, anyways, so they part. Chanyeol's fingers trace a line up the side of Jongin's face. "Thank you," he says.

"For what?"

"I don't know," Chanyeol admits with a breathy laugh.

"Why did you wait so long to kiss me again?" Jongin asks, the question bubbling up before he can think of a more tactful way to word it.

Chanyeol's smile turns sad around the edges of his eyes, and Jongin wants to smooth the worry lines away. "I didn't want to push you into anything you'd regret. You're the one leaving at the end of summer."

He's been thinking about his imminent departure. They all have been. But it's the first time someone's mentioned it in weeks. It's a reminder that there's a world going on off of the trail, one that measures time both quantitatively and with events like the due date of Jongin's assignment. The "real world" doesn't care for summer loves, for days measured in the number of kilometers, the number of sunsets, the number of bracelets accumulating on their wrists, and the number of songs sung by wolf packs.

But it's here in the back country that Jongin has found a passion that he hasn't felt since he had dance taken from him. Sure, he loves photojournalism. But even if he loves cataloging others' stories, he thinks he might like experiencing his own adventure for once.

And it's here that he found Chanyeol, here in between pine trees and fir trees and spruce trees, all of which he can tell apart because Chanyeol and his friends taught him how, just like how they taught him how to shed the stress and self-consciousness of the "real world" and exchange it for the freedom and earnestness that comes with trail life.

Maybe that makes the trail more real than anything else. "I don't think I could ever regret you," Jongin admits quietly.

"Me neither, Jongin," Chanyeol says, carding his fingers through Jongin's messy, greasy hair, and Jongin isn't even embarrassed because that's just how hair gets on the trail. Chanyeol kisses his forehead, and Jongin thinks that he can let himself have this for a few more days. End dates are something for the real world, anyways, and they're not there yet. "Not ever."

* * *

_When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings._  
Frédéric Gros

* * *

Andy Creek Campsite is their last stop. The sunlight wiggles through the trees as the wind moves the canopies around, providing a nice gust to cool off their exertion. It makes for a good hike and turns what would have been Jongin's gloominess into pensiveness. Everyone else is a little quiet, too.

The leaves are already starting to turn yellow at the far reaches of some of the maple trees. Autumn comes earlier than Jongin is used to up here, and it's just another reminder that summer is coming to an end.

But there is an upside to time moving on: the Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight, and their campsite is conveniently in a clearing wide enough to provide the perfect opening for stargazing.

That night, they don't even bother putting up the tent, encouraged by the complete lack of clouds. Together, they all sit on the benches around the fire and talk and laugh until it gets truly dark. Then, Minseok douses the fire with a pot of water from the creek, and they part ways to watch the meteor shower. They roll out their sleeping pads and sleeping bags on the bare ground. Sensing the heavy atmosphere between Jongin and Chanyeol, Baekhyun and Minseok set theirs up on the opposite side of the clearing, and Jongin is grateful; he wants to spend time with his friends, but this is his last night on the trail, and he wants to share it with Chanyeol.

Chanyeol and Jongin unzip their sleeping bags and spread one underneath them, the other covering them like a blanket. The temperature drops low enough to have Jongin wiggling as close as he can to Chanyeol without ulterior motives, although the physical contact is nice. Chanyeol tilts his head so it rests against Jongin's. In the space where Chanyeol's neck meets his shoulder, Jongin smells dirt, sweat, and the remnants of balsam.

It smells like adventure. It smells like love.

The meteors scrape across the sky at a rate faster than they ever had before, at least once a minute, and yet Jongin is just as amazed with one as he is with the next. There aren't any background noises besides the occasional gust of wind, but that's okay with Jongin; it means he can hear the steady draw and release of Chanyeol's breathing. They don't talk often. The way Chanyeol's fingers curl around Jongin's in between their bodies speaks enough.

The last thing Chanyeol says that night is, "Did you find something to wish for yet, Jongin?" His voice is thick with sleep.

Jongin considers the warmth and weight of Chanyeol's hand in his, the rhythm of his respiration, the way his heart is so full it aches. He squeezes Chanyeol's hand once, and he knows. "Yeah," Jongin says. "I did."

* * *

_If you can survive camping with someone, you should marry them on the way home._  
Yvonne Prinz

* * *

The forest spills out into a small prairie, and the path transitions from packed, bare dirt to mowed grass. Then that path leads to a dirt road, and on the far side of the road is a wooden sign with words etched in the robin egg blue of the Superior Hiking Trail.

OFFICIAL END OF THE SUPERIOR HIKING TRAIL  
← OTTER LAKE TRAIL ROAD →  
← SWAMP RIVER .1 MI  
BORDER ROUTE TRAIL .2 MI  
PROUT LAKE 1.7 MI →  
JACKSON LAKE ROAD 2.0 MI

And that's that, their whole trip ended with a single sign ushering them out. Jongin walks up to the sign and traces the word "end" with his finger, and then, because he's supposed to, he takes a few pictures. Is this really it? It's so anticlimactic. It can't all amount to this, just a sign saying where the other roads are. It can't, but it does, and Jongin can't help but feel indignant at the cheapening of their experience.

Baekhyun's voice cuts through the silence. "This is the old end. If we follow the border route, we'll get to 270 Degree Overlook, which is considered the new end." No one moves at first, so Minseok, always the one to take the reigns when no one else will, steps forward, starts walking down the road to the addendum to the trail, and they all follow him. As they walk, Minseok takes out his cell phone and turns it on. Judging by the conversation about being picked up, he's talking to Junmyeon. The call is brief and ends with another silence.

But the sun is shining, and eating the last of their food earlier that morning leaves their packs lighter than usual. It makes it easier to follow the trail up the incline. One-fifth of a mile isn't long, and soon enough, the trail opens up at the top of a cliff. True to its name, 270 Degree Overlook swells over the canopy of Superior National Forest, a throne of accomplishment over a sea of green. The remaining 90 degrees are obscured by a few tall conifers.

The sign here has the same font and color, but the wood is much lighter than the previous one, obviously placed more recently than the previous one.

END OF THE  
SUPERIOR HIKING TRAIL

There are no directions to usher them off, no pressure to leave the trail at their earliest convenience. On the contrary, there's a small wooden box hammered under the sign, on which rests a notebook and a pen. A trail register. Chanyeol and Baekhyun start to move forward but freeze when Minseok suddenly _howls._

Jongin thinks his heart stops for a moment. With a sound like that, Minseok must be in pain. But, no, when he looks, Minseok has his fists clenched in the air and his face turned towards the sky, not towards an injury. This isn't a cry of pain, but a howl of victory, punctuated by a disbelieving laugh.

Jongin feels compelled to join in, and there's no reason to stop himself. He feels a bit silly at first, howling at the top of his lungs, but Chanyeol's and Baekhyun's voices join him, too, and then instead of ridiculous, he feels invincible. Two months of backpacking has lead him here, and he has every right to scream his triumph. Their success echoes over the canopies below them, bouncing off of the leaves and cutting far and wide.

"Jesus!" Baekhyun shouts when they finish. "What the fuck was that?" But then they're all laughing too hard to answer. It had shaken off the weighted solemnity that had plagued them all morning. The end feels like a task accomplished now, not a punishment. Leave it to Minseok to know what to do.

They each leave notes in the register. Even Jongin has a message this time. His hand is sweaty, and the pen slips in his hand when he presses down too hard, so his handwriting is shaky, but it's legible.

_You told me once that no one experiences the trail the same way. I want to share all of those special experiences with you, Chanyeol. That's what I wished for._

Chanyeol doesn't see it because he writes his note before Jongin, but when Jongin walks up to him after, he pulls Jongin close and kisses the crown of his head. Maybe one day, Jongin will tell him what his wish is. But for now, this, Chanyeol holding him close while Baekhyun whines about how much he misses his bed and while Minseok tells him that he's going to be complaining about missing the trail by the end of the week, this is enough.

Jongin takes pictures of the overlook and of the sign while they wait for Junmyeon to come pick them up. It isn't long, because Junmyeon had come up last night and stayed at a motel somewhere nearby, Minseok having let him know their extraction date a few days ago. His Civic pulls up on Otter Lake Trail Road. They all pile in, fitting three packs into the trunk and squishing the fourth up front with them.

"Woah," Junmyeon says emphatically, "you sure smell like ripe, don't you?"

"Admit you're jealous," Baekhyun says, leaning his head against the window and his eyes fluttering closed.

Jongin's eyelids also feel heavy. He hadn't realized how sore his body is until he sat down, and now that he's relaxed, he can make use of a nap. He leans his head on Chanyeol's shoulder, humming contentedly when Chanyeol adjusts his posture to accommodate Jongin. Minseok's and Junmyeon's quiet back-and-forth updates are the perfect background noise to which to fall asleep.

It may be the end of the trail, but they still have a few days together in Duluth. Jongin has to contact Hyunah and let her know that he's ready to go back to Korea, even if he isn't. He'll book his flight home. And then, he'll have to say goodbye.

When he opens his eyes again, they're already in Duluth. The car is parked in Baekhyun's driveway, and Junmyeon and Minseok are opening the doors. Jongin blearily sits up, jostling Chanyeol from where he was leaning against Jongin, and then Baekhyun, who was slumped against Chanyeol in turn.

For the first time in two months, they change out of their clothes after their very, very thorough showers. Jongin puts on a soft white t-shirt with quarter-sleeves and some well-loved jeans that he brought with him but hadn't worn yet. After so long being in mobile but fitted hiking clothes, the loose, soft material feels strange but good against his skin.

Stranger still is seeing Chanyeol's new outfit. It's nothing special; he's just wearing basketball shorts and a muscle tank, but it's a stark difference from the tie-dye shirt Jongin has come to associate him with. Minseok and Baekhyun, too. Even if Minseok isn't brandishing multiple Patagonia logos, Jongin can and does imagine it hovering above his head.

After unpacking and showering, Jongin finally addresses what he's been avoiding since he stepped through the threshold of the house: his phone.

During the first few days of being on trail, Jongin had been itching for his phone. Being cut off from his friends and his language, and from his sister's regular social media updates on the well-being and adventures of his niece and nephew, Now, he knows that he's not as dependent on those connections as he had thought he was. Or maybe he was dependent before, but no longer.

Regardless, he needs to call Hyunah and let her know that he's ready to come home, even if he doesn't feel like it.

He addresses the barrage of texts from his family and friends, first. There's a lot of messages to sift through after abandoning his phone for so long. He replies his _I missed you, too_ s and his _I'm back from trail, I'll be home soon_ s. Promises to call his mom and dad when he's done unpacking.

He stares at Hyunah's contact name for a while. Then, he hits the call button.

+++

After they shower and change and eat, Junmyeon says, "Alright, you all look like shaggy dogs. Baekhyun, you have a shaving kit, don't you? Let's head out onto the porch and I can give all of you haircuts."

Like some post-trail ritual, Junmyeon sits them down one by one to trim their hair. Jongin takes his place on the porch chair after Minseok and Baekhyun have had their turns. He can hear Baekhyun's crowing laughter and Chanyeol clapping his hands from out here, with the windows open.

Junmyeon turns on the razor. "Jongin, you had an undercut, right?"

The sides and back of his hair are still shorter than the top and front, but all of it is longer than it was when he first arrived in Minnesota. "Right."

The razor presses against the base of his skull. Junmyeon is quiet for a few moments, and Jongin doesn't know him very well, has never talked to him one-on-one, so he's hesitant to start conversation. "This was your first trip, right?" Junmyeon finally asks.

"My only trip," Jongin admits. "But yeah, it was good. I enjoyed it a lot."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why is it your only trip?"

Jongin's brows furrow. "I'm just here for an assignment. I haven't been on trail before, and I don't . . . plan on coming back." As the words come out of his mouth, he realizes that he hasn't actually considered the possibility of coming back. He has obligations back home, his puppies, a job that sends him to different places for different amounts of time. He can't just drop everything to play in a forest for a few months.

And that's all this really was. He had an assignment, and he was fortunate enough to have fun doing it. Playtime is over. It's time for him to go home.

A metallic taste seeps across his tongue; he's been chewing on his lip again, and for a moment he imagines the flavor of not copper, but rather balsam fir, and he thinks of Chanyeol, and his chest hurts. The feeling doesn't abate until Junmyeon declares the haircut a success and Jongin goes back into the house to exclamations of how good he looks.

The only one who declines a hair cut is Chanyeol, who says the long-hair ponytail look has grown on him. Jongin can't say he dislikes it; it gives him a lot to work with when he hooks his fingers in Chanyeol's hair later on that night, when they settle down to watch a movie and Chanyeol lies his head in Jongin's lap.

But Jongin likes his own new undercut as well; the short hair feels nice when Chanyeol's fingertips stroke slow lines up and down the base of his skull even later, their bodies curved towards each other in the guest room bed. The nice thing about spending the entire summer sleeping next to each other is that there's no nervousness for doing so again now, not even while sharing a bed.

"When is your flight?" Chanyeol's voice, coarse with sleepiness, comes with warm, minty breath against Jongin's lips.

Jongin doesn't want to think about his flight. He doesn't want to think about his departure at all, or even how happy Hyunah was when she answered the phone earlier, how excitedly she launched into her plans for him when he gets back, how she's "looking forward to your article, Jongin."

"The day after tomorrow."

Chanyeol draws in a deep breath, and then he draws in Jongin, pulling him closer and burying his nose into his freshly-cut hair. Jongin's chest is so full it hurts, and he closes his eyes to contain the sudden swelling of water in them.

He's the one who's leaving. He has no right to cry.

* * *

_These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top._  
Robert Persig

* * *

His flight only has one layover this time. At LAX, he gets off, waits two hours, and boards the next flight to ICN. He tries to get as much sleep as he can, because if he sleeps, he doesn't have to remember Minseok and Chanyeol saying goodbye to him in front of the gate at MSP. He must look particularly miserable, because the elderly Japanese woman sitting next to him on his flight back to Korea puts one of her complementary cookies on his food tray. He thanks her as kindly as he can—arigato is one of the few words he knows in Japanese, and he doesn't even remember the full phrase to say it politely—and offers her his blanket in return.

Incheon International Airport is just as busy as he remembers it, the din and disorder buffeting Jongin harder than any storm on trail had. He finds himself unable to navigate the crowds as easily has he had a few months ago, bumping into people with mumbled apologies as they give him frustrated looks and muttered insults. He feels out-of-place, wrong, a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit.

Then a hand grabs him and yanks him off to the side, where bodies are scarcer. He tenses up, but then sees a familiar flat face, thin lips, heavy brows. "That was painful to watch," Sehun says. "Did you forget how to walk while you were in America?"

Jongin's throat feels thick. "I missed you, too, asshole."

Sehun's mouth twists, like he's beating down a smile, before he gives up, and it unfolds into a grin. He yanks Jongin forward into a hug. "Maybe I missed you a little." He pulls back and, in an act of benevolence completely uncharacteristic to Sehun, he grabs Jongin's duffel bag.

Jongin blinks owlishly. "Did you remember how to be nice while I was in America?"

"Don't get used to it," Sehun says. "You look like a kicked puppy right now. It makes me want to be nice out of pity." They start walking, and Sehun asks casually, "Do you miss it already?"

Damn Sehun for knowing him too well, and damn Jongin's inability to hide his emotions, ever the open book. "I'm just tired," Jongin says as they step onto an escalator. Sehun gives him a look, but doesn't reply, and Jongin knows he's going to be interrogated later.

"Later" turns out to be in the car. Sehun curses the airport traffic a few times, lulling Jongin into letting his guard down out of familiarity, before he turns the music volume down, and the Blackpink song that was playing goes quiet. "So, what are you really moping about?"

Jongin stares out the window, watching the the airport melt away behind them as Sehun pulls onto the expressway. They'll follow the expressway all the way to Seoul. It's a long time to redirect Sehun's questions.

"I really am just tired," Jongin says.

"No, I've seen sleepy Jongin before," Sehun says, drumming his fingers on his thigh with his free hand. "I've also seen 'something is bothering me and instead of talking about it with my best friend Sehun, I'm going to bottle it up until I burst' Jongin, too." He licks his lips, looking incredibly uncomfortable all of a sudden. "Look, I know Kyungsoo is better at talking about _feelings_ —" his voice twists around the word as though trying to avoid contact with a contagious disease, "—but you can talk to me, too."

Jongin can't help but laugh at that, and he knows Sehun is right, even if the thought of talking about it makes his stomach churn. "Yeah, I guess I miss it already," Jongin admits. "I had a lot of fun, and it feels like I have to come back to the real world, now."

"You liked not showering for weeks and sleeping on the ground?"

Sehun means it good-naturedly, so Jongin takes it in stride. "There are downsides," he concedes, "but there's more, too. Like breathing fresh air all day, and seeing all kinds of new animals, and not having to talk to people."

"Not talking to people? But I thought you hired someone to go with you."

"Yeah," Jongin says, and he closes his eyes. "Two other guys came with us, too."

"Did you like them?"

"Yeah, we all got along well." His stomach clenches tighter. "Minseok, my guide, was really cool. He knows a lot about backpacking and treating the trail with respect, and he always keeps the other two in line, especially Baekhyun." He imagines Baekhyun's rectangular grin. "Baekhyun is really energetic and charismatic. He knows a lot of facts about the forest and everything in it. He likes bugs." And then, "Chanyeol is . . ."

Kind. Funny. Intuitive. Handsome. Caring. Gentle. Patient. Talented. Charming.

"I liked Chanyeol a lot," he finishes, because he doesn't know what else to say when all he can think about is Chanyeol standing at the gate at MSP, facing Jongin and reaching out to tangle their fingers together, his eyebrows lowered and his mouth twisted in a way that had made Jongin want to kiss it until his frown relaxed.

He hadn't. He had squeezed Chanyeol's hands once, and then he had let go.

"If you ever want to come back," Chanyeol had said, voice thick and eyes unable to leave Jongin's, "you're welcome here. Or if you want to visit me in Montana, or if, maybe I could come visit you . . ."

"Chanyeol," Minseok had said quietly, and Chanyeol stopped talking. Jongin said goodbye, and Minseok returned it with a "Have a safe flight," and Chanyeol had just nodded. Jongin had waited a moment for something more, anything, because it seemed to unceremonious to be the true end of his adventure, of _them._ But when it was clear that there was nothing else to be said, he had turned and walked through the gate.

Sehun says, "I'm glad you liked them. Can you imagine having to spend over two months with people that you don't like? That'd be the worst."

It would have made it easier to leave. "Yeah. I got lucky," Jongin says.

They drive to Jongin's apartment and make a pit stop to pick up a bucket of chicken from one of Jongin's favorite restaurants. His apartment is almost eerily still without Jongin's puppies to come greet him. He'll have to pick them up from Taemin's house tomorrow. Puppies are like the balsam fir of Jongin's everyday life, and, damn it, Jongin can't think about balsam fir without thinking about Chanyeol. 

Sehun sets out plates and procures two cans of beer he finds in the back of Jongin's refrigerator. They're two of the only things he has left in his kitchen; all of his perishables had been thrown out before he left. Sehun tries to coax Jongin into conversation, but Jongin struggles to keep up, only managing short replies and one-word answers. 

Sehun finally sets his utensils down, fixing Jongin with a flat stare. "Alright, Jongin, you haven't told me everything. What's wrong?"

"Really, it's nothing," Jongin says. "I'm just t—"

"You're _not_ just tired, so cut the bullshit. You and I both know there's something else making you miserable. You just got back and you haven't even asked about your puppies once."

Jongin bites his lip and stares intently at the chicken breast on his plate, and he wonders if Chanyeol would like that chicken restaurant, too. If they have good restaurants for chicken in Minnesota, or in Montana, where Chanyeol lives.

"How can you fall in love with someone in just two months?"

There's no response at first. When Jongin looks up, Sehun's face is lax, unreadable. Then: "You 'liked him a lot,' huh," Sehun repeats.

Jongin clenches his fists and remembers how Chanyeol's hands felt in his before he pulled them away. "Yeah."

Sehun leans back in his chair, letting out a long, loud sigh. "That sucks," he says emphatically, and Jongin laughs at the irreverence that's so completely Sehun.

But Sehun also hooks their feet together under the table and leaves the biggest piece of chicken for Jongin, a silent display of support, and Jongin feels a little better.

* * *

_Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; you have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits._  
Cindy Ross

* * *

Jongin gets his puppies back the very next day. Taemin hates talking about feelings even more than Sehun, so if he notices that Jongin is looking a little worse for wear, he doesn't mention it. Jongin checks in with Hyunah and gets a deadline for his draft, and then makes plans to spend the next week sequestered in his home, only going out for groceries and to take the kids out on walks.

Not thinking about Chanyeol is hard to do when so many of Jongin's notes include Chanyeol's name, include anecdotes of what he did on a particular day, or what he said. Not thinking about Chanyeol is hard to do when he's in so many of Jongin's pictures, and in most of those, he's wearing that big, dopey grin that Jongin loves. He looks at the picture of Chanyeol's unfocused but smiling face as he holds up a Japanese beetle on his finger for Jongin to see, and thinks of how, when he'd taken the picture, he had no clue that the man in front of him would end up being so important.

Jongin's break comes in the form of Kyungsoo offering to take him out for coffee. They meet at a cafe, and Jongin finds himself imagining where the garish cabin decorations would be hung up if this were a cafe on the North Shore, or on which surfaces kitschy knick-knacks would be cluttered. Kyungsoo's already waiting there, already has two drinks set on the small table in front of him. Jongin slides into the empty chair across from Kyungsoo and breaths out a thanks.

"You look like you haven't slept," Kyungsoo says. He's always observant, always parental in his affections with his closest friends, especially Jongin. Jongin thinks he and Minseok would get along, if they ever meet.

Jongin's laugh is brittle, but not angry. Resigned. "Between my assignment keeping me busy and the jet lag, I don't think I've gotten more than twelve hours of sleep in the last three days." He knows there are grottoes under his eyes, above the newly-tanned swells of his cheeks. "I've been running on coffee and . . . that's it, really. Sehun's been texting me reminders to eat."

"That's uncharacteristically genteel of him."

"I think he wants something, and he's just waiting for me to let my guard down."

Kyungsoo takes a slow sip of his coffee, sets the cup down gingerly but doesn't let go as he says, "Or he's just worried about you, but is too emotionally constipated to say that."

Jongin had just drawn his cup up to his mouth, but he freezes before he can take a sip. He slowly sets the cup down. Kyungsoo's eyes are dark, understanding. "Did Sehun say something to you?" Jongin asks, even though he already knows the answer.

Kyungsoo watches him for a long moment. He must be wearing his contacts today, because he's not squinting, just regarding Jongin calculatedly. "He said you had a rough time leaving America, and that I should ask you about it myself."

Sighing, Jongin says, "Sehun needs to learn to actually follow through with his line of questioning instead of stuffing his face and passing the baton to his hyungs." As soon as he words leave his mouth, he feels bad; he knows Sehun cares for him, even if his version of caring involves a little bit of talking about him behind his back.

Kyungsoo snorts. "He's a good kid, but he's a maknae through and through. But I'm not here to talk about Sehun. I'm here to talk about you."

"Is this an intervention? Is that why you lured me out of my lair with coffee?"

"I would have lured you out with coffee anyways," Kyungsoo says. "You're my favorite dongsaeng, you know. You're the least noisy. I missed you."

Jongin softens. "I missed you too, hyung."

"And because you're my favorite dongsaeng," Kyungsoo continues, "I'd like to hear about what's making you so sad that Sehun, of all people, is trying to get you to eat, and maybe give you better support than, 'That sucks.'" When Jongin's eyebrows quirk up, Kyungsoo tilts his head knowingly. "He actually said that, didn't he?"

"Verbatim," says Jongin.

Kyungsoo sighs. "That kid . . ." He knocks his foot against the outside of Jongin's, and he sips thoughtfully on his coffee. "Look, this isn't an intervention. I won't pry. I really am interested in how your assignment went."

"I really liked my assignment," Jongin starts. "I thought hiking for over two months would be exhausting and gross. And it was, but not in a bad way. I felt proud of myself every day for every single step I took, and maybe we didn't bathe as much as I would in the 'real world,' but it was nice not focusing on how other people are going to think you look, or smell, or dress. You don't think about when you get to leave work, or worry about texting someone back on time, or stress over commute. None of that is important on the trail. Time doesn't exist the same way there."

On the other side of the cafe window, there are droves of people walking by with brisk gaits, looking tired or harried. They're all locked into schedules by the human concept of time, with numbers and deadlines, instead of by nature's sunrises and sunsets and seasons. How many of them know what's it's like to not have to think of anything but their next step? How many of them have traded their phones and their watches and alarm clocks for the rise and fall of the sun?

"When I stopped worrying about what I have to do next, or what people are going to think of me if I do something, I learned a lot about myself and the world around me. And I was happy, Kyungsoo. I was really happy."

It's not like there wasn't still stress on the trail. But the type of stress there was different. If a storm came, it wasn't because Jongin was ill-prepared, and he didn't have to blame himself while he waited those kinds of stressors out. If his thigh or back muscles hurt at the end of the day, the aches also came with accomplishment and strength. Those stressors were also rewards, almost, or testaments to Jongin's character.

"And you're not happy anymore?"

"I'm not unhappy," Jongin says, quick to assuage whatever emotion makes Kyungsoo's eyebrows pucker like that. "I just have new views on myself and the world, and those views don't match . . . here." He makes a vague gesture to the cafe around them. Kyungsoo will know what he means.

"That makes sense," Kyungsoo says. "You had a complete change of scenery and routine for two months. You had a whole new mindset. You don't have to completely leave that behind, though, Jongin. Maybe you could do assignments in places like Bukhansan."

"Maybe," Jongin concedes, looking off to the side.

Kyungsoo hums. He watches Jongin in a way that doesn't come off as invasive, but patient, compassionate. It becomes clear that he's waiting for Jongin to say more.

Jongin chooses his next words carefully, knowing that he can't throw a curveball at Kyungsoo without it being caught, unlike Sehun, who actively dodges unexpected turns, derailed easily by unplanned, emotional conversations. "There were three men who hiked the trail with me. And one of them, Chanyeol, I really . . . connected with him."

"Connected?"

Jongin looked at Kyungsoo pleadingly for a moment before biting his lip—and there are no balsam trees in Korea, but even still, he tastes the ghost of it on the tip of his tongue, can smell the phantom herbal zest of it. As the silence drags on, Kyungsoo's quirked eyebrow smooths in realization. "Oh, Jongin."

"He's really amazing, Kyungsoo. I think you'd like him. He was kind, and gentle, and patient, and _good,_ and I liked him so much." His coffee is making his stomach hurt. That's what he gets for drinking only caffeine without water or food to temper it. "I only knew him for less than three months. That's not long enough to fall in love with someone."

"Firstly," Kyungsoo says as he holds up one finger, "don't let society's conceptions of relationships decide the timeline for how you feel about someone. Secondly," he holds up two fingers, but then puts both of his hands down and leans forward with a concerned frown. "Jongin, you were in direct contact with him for over two months, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That's more than enough _time_ to get to know someone, if that's something you're really concerned about."

And hearing that makes Jongin feel a little less ridiculous for falling so hard, so fast. Maybe falling in love is a little like being on trail, where it's not bound by restrictions of quantitative time. Maybe falling in love is like the animals and plants he found on the trail, who don't care for society's opinions and judgments, and simply exist to their fullest.

"Thanks," Jongin says. "Hearing that makes me feel a little more valid."

Kyungsoo smiles, his eyes scrunching at the corners. "You were never not valid, you silly kid." He drums his fingertips on the table. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing." Jongin shrugs, projecting nonchalance where he feels none. "There's nothing to be done. I'll finish and publish my article, I'll be sent on my next assignment, and I'll get over it."

"Yeah? Just like how you 'got over' not being able to dance anymore?"

Jongin palpably flinches. "That's not fair," he murmurs.

Kyungsoo sighs, his eyebrows scrunching together again. "You're right. I'm sorry, I didn't say it to be mean. But you didn't see how distraught you were after you got hurt. I did. Sehun and Taemin, did, too, and your family. I've never seen that sort of despair on you before. I wasn't sure if you'd ever be happy again. You were in love with dance, just like you're in love with this man, or in love with hiking."

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"You're not _supposed_ to do anything. There's no right or wrong answer. I just want you to see that you have more options than 'getting over it.' You already lost one love, Jongin. Dance was taken from you, but you have a _choice_ with this. Don't choose to give it up without a second thought."

Jongin is overwhelmed. He knows he's standing at a crossroads, but instead of being marked by a wooden sign with a bold OFFICIAL END OF THE SUPERIOR HIKING TRAIL on the top, the roads twist away into multiple directions, and their tendrils splay into different endings. Jongin with his head down, never contacting Chanyeol or Minseok or Baekhyun again. Jongin reaching out to them, exchanging a few emails back and forth with irresolute plans to meet up in the future, and the correspondence dwindles until the trail is nothing but a memory that brings forth bittersweet feelings. Jongin giving up everything, leaving his dogs behind and quitting his job for one man in another country on the other side of the world, and still feeling incomplete.

Kyungsoo is right; he hadn't had a choice with dance. He never made the decision to be injured badly enough that he can no longer dance. But at least that wasn't a choice he could regret, because it was completely out of his hands. With this, though, there is room for regret.

Kyungsoo had said that there are no right or wrong answers, but Jongin feels the pressure to do what's right, even if he's not sure what "right" is.

* * *

_If you think you've peaked, find a new mountain._  
Unknown

* * *

He goes home and looks at his pictures again, and the little notes he has tucked into the pages of his notebook. 

If there's anything Jongin has learned about the trail, though, is that it's not about the destination, not about the end game. The story wasn't written when Jongin stepped off of the trail; it happened between the first step of the trail and the last, almost six hundred thousand steps later.

His story can't have an ending if he doesn't write all of the chapters in between. He won't make it to the end of the trail unless he walks all of the kilometers in between the first and the last, and has all of the adventures he can find along the way, and experiences all of the unique stories the trail has to offer, no two the exact same.

There's no right or wrong ending, but there will be no ending if Jongin doesn't do anything at all.

He doesn't have Chanyeol's contact information, but he does have Minseok's. It's a start.

* * *

_In the woods, there is no right way to go, of course, no trail to follow but the law of growth. You must leave behind the notion that things are right._  
Louise Erdrich

* * *

There's a layover at LAX, and then another at MSP. It's nostalgic, being back in Minnesota, if only for a few hours. It's long enough, though, that Baekhyun makes the drive down to Duluth just to take him out to eat in one of the over-priced airport restaurants. "Minseok is already on his next gig," Baekhyun says, and although Jongin doesn't know the exact translation of 'gig,' he can guess by context that it must mean something like "assignment." "He gets to hike part of the Alps, that lucky bastard." He grins, mouth rectangular and teeth sharp. "But _I'm_ the real winner here, because I get to see our Jonginnie again. Or, if we're going by that standard, I guess Chanyeol is the real winner, isn't he?"

Jongin blushes and swats at Baekhyun, who good-naturedly laughs in his face.

After lighthearted goodbyes and promises to see each other soon, he boards his final flight to MSO—Missoula, Montana. He'd slept on his two earlier flights, but he finds himself too jittery to even close his eyes on this one. His fingers turn white from how hard he grips his camera case.

Part of him almost expects another poster board to be raised in the crowd, labelled with his name in Hangeul and then in English. But there are none to be found, and barely even a crowd at all; if MSP is a fraction of ICN's population density, then MSO is even smaller than that. Jongin is cranked up to eleven, haywired, and every moment feels like the long, tense silence before the first note of a symphony, all anticipation and held breath.

There's no symphony. There's just Jongin's gaze sweeping the handful of people, and then his double-take when he sees a figure moving towards him out of the corner of his eye. Jongin turns just in time to get his face smushed into a broad chest. Arms fold around him, and Jongin is struck, for a moment, by how shocking this is, but also painfully familiar. His heart aches, but in a way that feels good, for once.

Chanyeol pulls back, then, and moves to hold Jongin an arms-length away, his hands resting on Jongin's shoulders. His hair is still long, even longer, now, still pulled back into a little ponytail. It covers the tips of his ears, hiding their charmingly silly size. His eyes are wide with wonder. "I can't believe you're here," Chanyeol says. "I knew you were coming. We talked about it so much. But, still, I can't—I mean, you're _here."_ He sounds so awed, like Jongin is really someone worthy of marvel.

It makes him equal parts pleased and shy, and if Jongin were someone suave or witty, he'd reply with some sort of quip. As it is, Jongin is barely even coherent with how happy he is, and all he says is an emotional, "I missed you."

"I missed you! I just—"

And one second Chanyeol is talking, but the next his face is close, so close, and there are lips on Jongin's, soft and pliant. The chaste kiss only lasts two seconds, if Jongin's being generous, before Chanyeol leans back, looking startled, and after a moment Jongin realizes that that was _Jongin_ that had kissed _Chanyeol._ He backtracks. "I. I didn't mean to do that, I just. Did it. I don't even know— Do you—?"

_Do you still want me?_

Eyes softening, Chanyeol cups Jongin's jaw, silencing his stuttered tirade. He holds Jongin in place as he dips forward again, slow, deliberate, and there's something exciting about being made to wait for the moment that their lips touch again. Chanyeol plies open Jongin's mouth with gentle movements, the subtlest suction making Jongin's breath stutter.

He has to be floating. There's no way a kiss alone can make him feel this light.

Chanyeol presses his forehead to Jongin's. "Yes," he says to the question still hanging in the air. "Yes, Jongin, yes. Please, God, _yes."_

Jongin is filled with so many things—happiness, love, doubt, excitement, and, embarrassingly, tears, which he beats down the best he can. He ends up squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face back against Chanyeol's chest. Chanyeol rubs his hands up and down Jongin's arms, kisses Jongin's hairline over and over again.

Finally, after Jongin regains control of his tear ducts and his arms are starting to numb under the rhythmic strokes of Chanyeol's arms, Chanyeol says sheepishly, "I have a ride for us. We probably shouldn't make him wait any longer."

"Oh, yeah, um. Right." Jongin fumbles with his bags until two of them are removed from his grasp. There's three bags, this time; he plans on staying longer than he had this summer, so he needed more luggage. Chanyeol smiles at him and starts off towards the gate, and Jongin follows, smitten.

There's a queue of cars waiting on the road outside of the building, and Chanyeol stops at a blue one. He raps a finger on the glass and asks for the trunk to be opened, and then helps Jongin load his luggage into it.

Before they get in the car, Chanyeol pauses and regards Jongin for a moment before he leans in and steals one more kiss, one that only breaks when Jongin's mouth is smiling too wide to continue. "I could kiss you all day," Chanyeol says, dazed.

Jongin opens his mouth to reply, but then is interrupted by the sharp burst of a car horn, making him jump. Chanyeol rolls his eyes. "That would be our ride," he sighs. He opens the car door for Jongin, letting him slide in.

"I'm happy for you two lovebirds," the driver says, "but watching you guys kiss in the side view mirror is also making me jealous. I still can't believe that _Chanyeol_ is getting laid when I'm not. What has the world come to?"

From the other car door, Chanyeol slides in next to Jongin. "Jongin, meet my best friend in Montana, Jongdae. We work together at the environmental learning center."

"I like how you have to specify, 'in Montana.' As if I wouldn't be your best friend in other contexts." Jongdae turns around, revealing mirthful eyes and a mouth that reminds Jongin of a cat, shaped like a W. "Nice to finally meet you, Jongin. I've heard a lot about you."

"Baekhyun is my best friend," Chanyeol says. "You bully me too much."

"Out of love," Jongdae insists. He eases the car back out of the queue, swinging his head around to dart into the driving lane during a break in the traffic.

"Your love is kind of prickly, Jongdae."

"My love is what makes me drive you all the way to fucking Missoula to pick up your boyfriend."

"I'm paying you gas money!"

"You're also paying me by giving me your friend Minseok's phone number."

To Jongin, Chanyeol says, "Jongdae read your article, too. He saw Minseok and became obsessed."

"Those arms look like they could pulverize me and I'm disgustingly into it. You've betrayed me by not introducing us so far." Without missing a beat to indicate a change in topic, he continues, "Hey, Jongin, your article was really good, though! I felt like I was on trail with you."

"Thank you. I was really surprised how well-received it was, honestly." His article's raging success was what made it easier to ask Hyunah for another assignment on a trail in America. A longer one. She had said yes so easily that it made Jongin wonder why he had been so nervous about asking her in the first place.

Taemin agreed to keep his dogs again, but insisted that Jongin take them back if he plans on moving to America. Jongin doesn't have any plans like that for right now; deciding to hit the trail again was as far as he got, and he knows now that that's okay. He needs to have his adventure first before he can find his ending.

"I'm not," Chanyeol says fondly.

"You wrote like you really understood the trail," Jongdae continues. "I couldn't believe it when Chanyeol told me that it was your first trip. It sounds like you have the connection with it that usually takes years to form."

Jongin smiles. His hand finds Chanyeol's, and he threads their fingers together. "I had good company to help me." Chanyeol squeezes his had once. He's still wearing the bracelet Jongin made for him a few months ago.

"Yeah? Well, you're going to have good company when you go to Glacier, too."

"Jongdae is one of the two other people who's coming with us when we hike Glacier National Park," Chanyeol explains.

"Who's the other?" Jongin asks.

"Yixing, actually! We stayed connected after meeting him again in Grand Marais. He said we inspired him, and he wants to take a semester off to come backpacking with us."

"I liked him," Jongin says. "I think this sounds like a good team."

"I hope so, since we're going to be with him for the next trip. Glacier has over 700 miles of trail, you know. We won't hike all of it, but we're going to cover more ground than we did on the SHT. Think you're ready for it?"

Chanyeol squeezes his hand again. His eyes are lit up like an August night sky on the North Shore. It makes Jongin think of shooting stars and wishes written down in trail registers. Of days marked not with calendars, but with the number of bracelets and the length of hair. It makes him think of serenading Hozier covers, and the smell of balsam fir. It makes him think of the same passion for dance now found in a man.

There are hundreds of experiences waiting for Jongin on this trail, and hundreds of more on the next, if he decides to do more. He'll share those experiences with Chanyeol, and be able to save a few of them in his articles. He can't see his ending yet, but it never was about the destination.

"Yeah," Jongin says, "I'm ready."

* * *

_It didn’t take fancy equipment, guidebooks, training, or youthfulness. It took putting one foot in front of the other—five million times._  
Ben Montgomery

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> yes, there might at some point be a xiubaek spinoff, or a cbx spinoff, or a baekxing spinoff, or a xingdae spinoff, i don't know.
> 
> thanks to everyone who helped me get this done. thanks to l, who has helped me so much that i started asking myself "what would l say" when i got stuck. thanks to n, who got me back on my feet when i started feeling a disconnect from this fic, and who inspired it to begin with. thanks to those of you who cheered me on, from those who sent encouraging messages to those who sent shirtless pictures of minseok. thanks especially to the mods for putting on this fest.
> 
> and the biggest, biggest thanks to all readers who were stuck imagining exo with midwestern accents. i love you.


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